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ALGERNON  CHARLES  SWINBURNE  AS  DRAMATIC  CRITIC 


BY 

ALITA  FERNE  UPTON 

B.  A.  Eureka  College,  1921 


THESIS 

SUBMITTED  IN  PARTIAL  FULFILLMENT  OF  THE  REQUIREMENTS 
FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF  MASTER  OF  ARTS  IN  ENGLISH 
IN  THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
1922 


URBANA,  ILLINOIS 


1: 


/5  Jas  3 4A  r 


1922 

Up  8 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL 

July -1922- 


I HEREBY  RECOMMEND  THAI’  THE  THESIS  PREPARED  UNDER  MY 

SUPERVISION  BY_  AT.TTA  FF.RTJF.  TTPTOW 

ENTITLED_.AL_GEE1;I0H-.-CHARLES  SWINEURITE:  dramatic  critic 


BE  ACCEPTED  AS  FULFILLING  THIS  PART  OF  THE  REQUIREMENTS  FOR 
THE  DEGREE  OF  MASTER  OF  ARTS  IN  ENGT.TRH 


In  Charge  of  Thesis 


c/T  t 


" Head  of  Cl^partment 


Recommendation  concurred  in* 


Committee 

on 

Final  Examination* 


•Required  for  doctor’s  degree  but  not  for  master’s 


509410 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2016 


https://archive.org/details/algernoncharlessOOupto 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


Biographical  1 

I.  Pereonal  Char  act  eri  at  ice 2. 

!!♦  Shakespearean  Criticism 12 

III,  A Study  of  Ben  Jonson 34 

IV.  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare 49 

V.  Summary 74 

Bibliography  . 85 


I 


1 0 


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BIOGRAPHICAL 

Algernon  Charles  Swinburne,  son  of  Admiral  Charles  Henry 
Swinburne  and  Lady  Jane  Henrietta,  daughter  of  George,  third  Earl  of 
Ashburnham,  was  born  in  London  on  the  fifth  of  April,  1837,  During 
hie  early  life  he  spent  the  winter  months  at  his  father's  home  in 
the  Isle  of  Wight,  and  the  summer  months  on  his  grandfather’s  estate 
in  Northumberland. 

After  some  years  of  private  tuition,  Swinburne  was  sent  to 
Eton,  where  he  remained  for  five  years.  He  entered  Balliol  College, 
Oxford,  in  1857,  leaving  without  a degree  in  1859.  In  the  following- 
year  he  published  The  Queen  Mother  and  Rosamond, 

Anxious  to  associate  with  men  of  his  own  tastes  and  syinpathies, 
Swinburne  took  rooms  in  London  and  entered  more  fully  upon  his  poet- 
ical career.  By  the  close  of  his  thirtieth  year,  in  spite  of  hos- 
tility and  detraction,  Swinburne  had  attained  a high  position  among 
contemporary  poets.  About  1880  Swinburne's  friendship  with  Theodore 
Watts-Dunton  grew  into  almost  more  than  brotherly  intimacy.  They 
took  up  their  residence  together  at  the  Pines,  Putney,  where 
Swinburne  devoted  himself  entirely  to  the  pursuit  of  literature, 

T/hile  Watts-Dunton  acted  as  a guardian  to  keep  the  poet  free  from 
disturbing  irifluences. 

On  the  tenth  of  April,  1909,  after  a short  attack  of  influenza, 
followed  by  pneumonia,  Swinburne  died  at  his  home  in  Putney,  and  was 
buried  at  Bonchurch,  Isle  of  Wight. 


2 


0HAPTER  I 

Personal  Characteristics 

Swinburne's  criticism  is  to  an  extraordinary  degree  a reflec- 
tion of  the  man  himself.  In  order  to  understand  it,  and  correctly 
to  evaluate  it,  we  must  ever  bear  in  mind  as  a groundwork  for  our 
analysis  the  distinctive  personal  characreri sties  which  so  greatly 
influence  hie  literary  work. 

Swinbiirne's  personal  appearance,  the  best  description  of  which 
we  owe  to  Mr.  Edmund  Gosse,  was,  like  the  character  of  his  genius, 
unique.  He  was  five  feet  four  and  a half  inches  in  height,  the  tiny 
framework  of  his  body  and  his  sloping  shoulders  giving  him  a girlish 
look.  The  unusual  size  of  his  head,  carried  proudly  erect  on  a long 
neck,  was  emphasized  by  a great  shock  of  fiery  red  hair,  which  he 
wore  very  much  fluffed  out  at  the  sides.  Swinburne's  small,  greenish' 
gray  eyes  were  deeply  set,  and  of  singular  intensity.  The  piercing 
fixity  of  his  gaze  and  the  lofty  brow  contrasted  sharply  with  the 
weak  mouth  and  receding  chin.  I quote  Mr.  Adams'  impression  of  the 
poet's  appearance  in  1862,-  "A  tropical  bird,  high-crested,  long- 
beaked,  with  rapid  utterance  and  screan*s  of  humour."^ 

Swinburne  was  rarely  still.  As  he  stood  talking  to  his  friends 
his  hands  were  constantly  moving,  and  he  skipped  restlessly  from  one 
foot  to  the  other,  often  pressing  the  heel  of  one  foot  with  the  toe 
of  the  other.  This  excess  nervous  energy  made  a vivid  impression 
upon  all  who  came  in  contact  with  the  poet.  Unusual,  almost  uncanny 
in  their  unexpectedness,  his  actions  often  were.  Mr.  Gosse  was 

1.  Adams,  Education  of  Henry  Adams.  1918,  p 139. 


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3 

presented  to  Swinburne  in  1871,  and  writes  thus  of  the  meeting:- 
”As  he  talked  to  me,  he  stood,  perfectly  rigid,  with  his  arms  shiver- 
ing at  his  sides,  and  his  little  feet  tight  against  each  other,  close 
to  a low  settee  in  the  middle  of  the  room.  Every  nov/  and  then,  with- 
out breaking  off  talking  or  bending  his  body,  he  hopped  on  to  this 
sofa,  and  presently  hopped  down  again,  so  that  I was  reminded  of 
some  orange-crested  bird  - a hoopoe,  perhaps,  - hopping  from  perch 
to  perch  in  a cage."^ 

Intellectual  pleasure  produced  an  extraordinary  effect  upon 
Swinburne,  causing  his  whole  body  to  shake  and  twitch  under  the 
stimulus  of  it.  He  was  quickly  sent  into  an  almost  convulsive  state 
by  even  very  slight  emotional  excitement.  As  lir.  Gosse  puts  it,  "He 
was  like  that  little  geyser  in  Iceland  which  is  always  simmering, 
but  which,  if  it  is  irritated  by  having  pieces  of  turf  thrown  into 
it,  instantly  boils  over  and  flings  its  menacing  column  at  the  sky. "2 
These  periods  of  excessive  exaltation  and  excitement  were  generally 
followed  by  corresponding  periods  of  depression  and  gloom,  when  he 
looked  at  the  world  through  dark  spectacles,  and  felt  lonely  and 
abused. 

There  were  certain  interests  which  Swinburne  carried  with  him 
throughout  hie  entire  life.  He  was  passionately  fond  of  beauty,  and 
keenly  appreciative  of  its  various  forms  as  expressed  in  nature,  in 
literature,  and  in  the  work  of  men*s  hands.  This  love  of  beauty, 
which  amovinted  almost  to  worship,  is  seen  at  second  hand  through  hie 
own  poetical  work  and  through  his  delight  in  beauty  of  thought, 

1.  Goese's  Life  of  Swinburne,  p 201. 

2.  Gosse:  Portraits  and  Sketches,  p 13. 


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4 

expression  and  melody  as  he  found  it  in  the  work  he  criticized.  Mr, 
Coulson  Kernahan  gives  a delightfully  intimate  picture  of  the  poet’s 
direct  and  highly  emotional  reaction  to  natural  beauty.  The  particu- 
lar occasion  was  a gift  of  flowers  presented  by  Mr.  Kernahan.  "In 
an  ecetacy  of  delight,  he  took  the  flowers  from  my  outstretched  hand 
as  reverently  as  the  communicant  takes  into  his  hands  the  consecrated 
bread  of  the  sacrament,  as  tenderly  as  a young  mother  takes  into  her 
arms  her  new-born  child.  He  bent  his  head  over  them  in  a rapture 
that  was  almost  like  a prayer,  his  eyes  when  he  looked  up  to  thank 
me  for  the  gift  alight  and  brimming  over  with  thoughts  that  were  not 
far  from  tears.  For  many  minutes  he  sat  holding  themi,  turning  them 
this  way  and  that,  too  rapt  in  his  worship  to  speak  or  think  of  any- 
thing else.  He  rose  in  hie  quiet  way,  the  flowers  in  his 

hand  and  left  the  room.  In  a few  minutes  the  door  reopened,  but 

only  wide  enough  to  let  him  slip  through,  and  he  stole,  rather  than 
walked,  to  his  chair,  where  he  sea-ted  himself  among  us  again,  almost 
as  noiselessly  as  a card  is  shuffled  back  to  its  place  in  the  pack."l 
He  gave  himself  over  just  as  ecstatically  to  the  enjoyment  of  loveli- 
ness in  literature.  "I  have  seen  hini  literally  dance  and  caper  and 
whistle  (yes,  whistle)  over  some  new  toy  treasure  trove,  in  the  shape 

of  a poemi,  by  himself  or  a friend or  a coveted  first  edition."^ 

His  life-long  love  for  the  sea,  his  habitual  reverence  for  old  age 
and  adoration  for  infancy,  his  hatred  of  h3rpocrisy  and  tyranny, color 
his  poetry  and  to  a lesser  extent  are  reflected  in  his  critical  work. 
His  interest  in  Shakespeare  and  his  contemporaries  (the  chosen  field 

1,  Kernahan:  In  Good  Company,  p 27, 

2.  Ibid:  p 30, 


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5 

of  his  dramatic  criticism)  was  manifested  early  in  his  life.  When  he 
first  entered  Eton  he  carried  hie  treasured  Bowdler's  Shakespeare  in 
his  arms.  Mareton,  Nabbes,  Marlowe,  Massinger,  and  Ford,  as  well  as 
others  of  this  period,  were  familiar  to  him  ever  since  his  thirteenth 
year.  It  was  his  first  ambition,  he  writes,  ”to  do  something  worth 
doing,  and  not  utterly  unworthy  of  a young  countryman  of  Marlowe  the 
teacher  and  Webster  the  pupil  of  Shakespeare.  And  my  first  book, 
written  while  yet  under  academic  or  tutorial  authority,  bore  evidence 
of  that  ambition  in  every  line."^  Beautiful  poetry  entranced 
Swinburne,  than  whom  perhaps  no  other  English  poet  was  more  widely 
acquainted  with  the  literatures  of  foreign  countries  and  of  ancient 
times.  Of  the  Greeks,  he  particularly  admired  Aeschylus,  and  took 
occasion  to  express  that  admiration  over  and  over. 

Swinburne  was  a man  of  violent  attachments  and  prejudices. 
Sometimes  his  devotion  was  stedfast  and  of  long  duration,  as  in  the 
case  of  Shakespeare,  Hugo,  Landor,  Mazzini,  - sometimes  enthusiastic 
admiration  was  suddenly  changed  to  gall  and  hatred  by  an  inadvertent 
remark,  a chance  trampling  upon  ground  which  was  sacred  to  him  , - 
or  the  change  might  be  due  to  the  influence  of  some  friend’s  opinion 
upon  his  own.  There  was  no  half-way  place  for  Swinburne.  He  either 
intensely  admired  a man  or  he  heartily  disliked  him.  For  those  whose 
names  are  mentioned  above,  he  had  only  words  of  boundless  praise  and 
loyalty;  for  those  who  fell  under  the  ban  of  his  disapproval  no  words 
of  criticism  or  of  scorn  could  be  too  harsh,  no  behavior  too  extrava- 
gant to  express  his  utter  contempt  and  hatred.  During  his  Oxford 
days  he  created  no  little  excitement  by  his  spectacular  violence.  An 

1.  Swinburne;  Poems,  first  series,  1866,  Vol.l,  p X. 


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ardent  Republican,  his  abuse  of  Napoleon  III  assumed  a most  fantastic 
form,  as  he  danced  around  the  room,  giving  vent  to  his  feelings  with 
shrieks  of  hatred  and  screams  of  defiance.  He  secured  a picture  of 
Orsini,  who  had  attempted  the  assassination  of  the  emperor,  hung  it 
on  the  wall  opposite  the  portrait  of  Mazzini,  and  indulged  in  an 
abandonment  of  worship  of  the  two.  Even  hie  innate  love  of  invec- 
tive will  scarcely  serve  to  excuse  the  violence  of  the  tirades  hurled 
against  those  whom  he  had  formerly  admired,  especially  when,  as  is 
often  the  case,  there  was  such  inadequate  ground  for  so  radical  a 
change.  The  reversal  of  his  relations  with  Whitman  typifies  the  ex- 
travagance of  hie  abuse  under  such  circumstances.  In  the  early  days 
Swinburne  had  been  on  friendly  terms  with  Whitman,  and  had  praised 
some  of  his  work  very  highly.  He  said  in  1872  that  as  far  as  he 
knew,  he  was  "at  one  with  Whitman  on  general  matters  no  less  than  on 
political",  and  that  the  attitude  toward  life  which  Whitman  held 
seemed  to  him  altogether  "acceptable  and  noble",  perfectly  credible 
and  sane."^  As  late  as  1885  he  wrote,  "I  retain  a very  cordial  ad- 
miration for  not  a little  of  Whitman’s  earlier  work"^  and  sent  friendlj- 
ly  greetings  to  the  American  poet.  And  yet  in  1867  we  have  this  from 
his  pen,  - "The  muse  of  Whitman  is  a drunken  apple-woman,  indecently 
sprawling  in  the  slush  and  garbage  of  the  gutter  amid  the  rotten 

*7 

refuse  of  her  overturned  fruit-stall."  "His  Venue  is  a Hottentot 
wench  under  the  influence  of  Cantharides  and  adulterated  rum."^  "He 


1.  Quotation  from  Swinburne  in  Thomas'  Swinburne . p 105. 

2.  Swinburne's  Letters.  Vol.II,  p 154. 

3.  Quotation  from  Swinburne  in  Gosse's  Life,  p 276. 

4.  Quotation  from  Swinburne  in  Thomas'  Swinburne . p 106. 


7 

has  the  dirty,  clumsy  paws  of  a harper  whose  plectrum  is  a muck 
raok."^  This  serves  to  illustrate  the  Influence  of  Watts-Dunton,who 
confessed  that  he  hated  Whitman  most  heartily,  upon  the  opinions  of 
Swinburne.  Another  instance  of  this  influence  is  the  sudden  violent 
attack  upon  Whistler  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  of  June  , 1888. 
Whistler  had  been  a warm  friend  of  Swinburne's,  and  the  latter  had 
written  to  Mrs.  Lynn  Linton  in  1880,  "The  paintings  of  Whistler  are 
second  only  to  the  very  greatest  works  of  art  in  any  age. "2  But 
Watts-Dunton  had  never  liked  Whistler,  and  he  frankly  admits  that  he 
persuaded  Swinburne  to  write  "the  really  brilliant  article,"^  which 
in  reality  is  only  a regrettable  outburst  of  irony  and  hyperbole. 

Watt s-IXmton  was  an  over-officious  nurse,  and  Swinburne  was  but  too 
apt  to  listen  to  everything  he  said  as  coming  from  the  lips  of  a mas- 
ter. Thus  Swinburne  cries  enthusiastically,  "If  every  page  upon 
which  they  (Watts-Dunton* s Athenaeum  essays)  were  printed,  represents 
a hundred  pound  bank  note;  if  the  back  and  sides  of  the  cover  were  of 
the  finest  beaten  gold  - that  would  not  be  too  costly  a raiment  for 
the  noblest  critical  work,  dealing  with  first  principles,  that  has 

4 

ever  been  given  to  the  world." 

A few  words  were  often  enough  to  change  Swinburne's  entire  at- 
titude. His  friendly  relations  with  W.B.  Scott  had  continued  up  to 

the  time  of  the  latter's  death  in  1890,  when  Swinburne  addressed  him 

. 5 

as  "poet  and  painter  and  friend,  thrice  dear."  However,  on  the 

1.  Quotation  from  Swinburne  in  More's  Shelburne  Essays.  Third  Series, 

p 122. 

2.  Quotation  from  Swinburne  in  Gosse's  Life,  p 273. 

3.  Quotation  from  Watts-Dunton  in  Gosse's  Life . p 273. 

4.  Quoted  from  Swinburne  in  Zernahan's  In  Good  Company,  p 25. 

5.  Quoted  from  Swinburne's  poems  in  Gosse's  Life.  x>  72. 


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8 


appearance  of  Scott’s  Autobiographical  Notes  In  1892,  an  editor  re- 
corded Scott’s  ;)ealousy  of  younger  and  more  famous  friends.  This 
was  enough  to  fire  Swinburne,  and  he  Immediately  published  a violent 
denunciation  of  Scott.  A chance  phrase  In  Matthew  Arnold's  Letters 
(1895)  referring  to  "a  sort  of  pseudo-Shelly  called  Swinburne 

A 

turned  his  enthusiastic  admiration  for  Arnold,  expressed  over  and 
over  In  extravagant  terms,  to  hatred,  Swinburne  was  essentially  a 
child  of  emotion  and  passion,  and  when  under  the  sway  of  Intense 
feeling  expressed  himself  In  hasty  words  which  his  saner  judgment 
would  have  withheld.  As  his  father  says  of  him,  "God  has  endowed  my 
son  with  genius,  but  He  has  not  vouchsafed  to  grant  him  self-control^ 
But  Swinburne  would  justify  himself  with  some  such  remark  as,  "I 
don’t  know  whether  you  can  reasonably  expect  me  to  be  very  much 
weaker  thah  a tame  rabbit, or,  "Even  milk  would  boll  over  twice  to 
be  treated  In  that  way."^ 

Mention  has  already  been  made  of  Swinburne’s  fondness  for  In- 
vective. It  must  be  recognized  that  the  extravagance  of  vituperation 
heaped  upon  one  or  another  of  the  men  who  had.  the  fortune  or  the  mis- 
fortune to  be  the  objects  of  Swinburne’s  literary  criticism  may  be 
due  not  entirely  to  the  critic’s  dislike  for  him  as  a man  or  as  an 
artist,  or  to  the  Influence  of  another’s  opinions,  or  even  to  a sud- 
den gust  of  passion.  These  elements  are  all  apparent  In  Swinburne’s 
work,  but,  with  the  exception  of  the  latter,  are,  we  might  say, 

1.  Quoted  In  Gosse’s  Life . p 314. 

2,  Quoted  In  Brock’s  Essay  on  Books,  p 72. 

3,  Quoted  In  Gosse’s  Portraits  and  Sketches,  p 38, 

4.  Ibid. 


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9 


acquired  or  circumstantial.  Love  of  invective  for  its  own  sake  seems 
to  have  been  inherent  in  Swinburne.  He  had  a marvellous  command  of 
denunciatory  phraseology,  and  enjoyed  the  flame  and  bang  of  firework 
language  quite  apart  from  any  personal  feeling.  In  this  connection 
a story  of  his  college  days  by  Lord  Bryce  is  Interesting.  "I  remem- 
ber once  he  had  been  gated  by  the  dean  for  non-attendance  at  chapel. 
Someone  said,  *Let  us  condole  with  poor  Swinburne',  and  so  we  went  to 
his  rooms  to  cheer  him  up.  He  launched  into  a wonderful  display  of 
vituperative  language  "(and  here  is  the  significant  part),  "He  was 
not  really  angry,  but  he  enjoyed  the  opportunity,  and  the  resources 
of  his  imagination  in  metaphor  and  the  amazing  richness  of  his 
vocabulary  had  never,  I think,  struck  us  so  much  before."^  Ever  so 
slight  a provocation  was  sufficient  to  draw  from  Swinburne  a torrent 
of  abuse,  even  when  the  victim  chanced  to  be  a friend.  In  a certain 
line  of  Mr.  William  Michael  Rossetti's  edition  of  Shelley  there  is 
an  interpolation  of  the  word  "autumn".  This  is  Swinburne's  manner 
of  speaking  of  it:-  "For  the  conception  of  this  atrocity  the  editor 
is  not  responsible;  for  its  adoption,  he  is.  A thousand  years  of 
purgatorial  fire  would  be  insufficient  expiation  for  the  criminal  on 
whose  deaf  and  desperate  head  must  rest  the  original  guilt  of  defac- 
ing the  text  of  Shelley  with  this  damnable  corruption."^  He  im- 
patiently condemned  Keats'  early  verses  as  "some  of  the  most  vulgar 
and  fulsome  doggerel  ever  whimpered  by  a vapid  and  effeminate  rhyme- 
ster in  the  sickly  stage  of  whelphood. While  in  this  abusive 
strain,  he  chose  to  consider  Tennyson's  Idylls  of  the  King  as  a 

1.  Quoted  in  Gosse's  Life . p 59. 

2.  Quoted  in  James'  Views  and  Reviews,  p S3. 


3.  Quoted  in  Thomas's  Swinburne , p 104 


10 

"lewd  circle  of  strumpets  and  adulterers  revolving  around  the  centra; 
figure  of  their  inane  wittol."^  This  Swinburnian  characteristic  wil] 
appear  more  fully  when  we  consider  his  dramatic  criticism. 

Swinburne  was  extreme  in  everything,  and  his  behavior  was  fre 
quently  as  startling  as  some  of  his  utterances.  If  irritated,  he 
was  likely  to  do  or  say  just  what  the  impulse  of  the  moment  suggest- 
ed, with  no  consideration  of  the  proprieties.  At  one  time  he  was  in- 
veigled into  attending  a meeting  which  held  no  interest  for  hiip. 

After  agonizing  for  some  time,  Swinburne  arose  and  stalked  from  the 
room.  Immediately  thereafter  a crunching  noise  was  heard  in  the 
vestibule,  which  upon  investigation  proved  to  be  Swinburne,  taking 
vengeance  for  the  dullness  he  had  endured  by  jumping  on  some  scores 
of  silk  hats. 

Swinburne  was  often  unjust  and  extravagant,  but  never  mean  or 
little.  With  selfishness,  timidity  or  hypocrisy  he  had  nothing  to 
do,  although  he  could  be  splendidly  absurd.  Hie  extravagances  grew 
out  of  enthusiasms  and  emotions  which  were  part  of  his  endowment  as 
a man  of  genius.  He  was  blessed  with  a vivid  imagination,  which  at 
times  played  tricks  upon  him,  for  an  appeal  to  it  was  sure  to  cast  a 
rosy  light  around  the  most  common  object.  A lady  once  told  Swinburne 
that  she  would  play  upon  the  piano  a very  ancient  Florentine  ritornel 
lo  which  had  been  recently  discovered.  She  thereupon  sat  down  at  the 
piano  and  played  Three  Blind  Mice.  Swinburne  was  fascinated  by  it, 
declaring  that  in  it  he  could  feel  the  cruel  beauty  of  the  Medici s. 

The  brilliance  and  power  of  Swinburne's  mind  was  astounding, 
and  the  retentiveness  of  hie  memory  a source  of  amazement  to  all  who 
knew  him.  One  reading  was  sufficient  to  fix  in  hie  mind  great 


1.  Quoted  from  Thomas:  Swinburne's  Under  the  Microscope,  p.l09, 


tr. 


A 


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.;.  1 > Mil'll'  ; ,4 

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11 


sections  of  material  with  perfect  accuracy.  He  is  said  to  have  been 
present  when  Rossetti  thrust  the  only  manuscript  of  his  poems  into 
his  wife's  coffin,  and  to  his  marvellous  memory  is  chiefly  due  the 
credit  for  their  reconstruction.^  This  gift  was  one  of  his  greatest 
assets.  His  keen  intuition  and  quick  perception  of  the  heart  of  the 
matter  as  well  as  his  ability  to  recollect  practically  everything  he 
had  read  made  it  possible  for  him  to  deal  so  illminatingly  with  the 
vast  range  of  literature  which  he  has  undertaken  to  criticize. 

Swinburne  was  a hero-worshipper,  but  his  idols  were  not  con- 
fined to  the  class  of  those  who  had  achieved  great  things  in  politi- 
cal or  military  life.  Intensely  patriotic  as  he  was,  he  naturally 
found  men  of  this  type  for  whom  he  felt  the  keenest  admiration  and 
loyalty;  but  his  best  love  was  fixed  otherwhere.  The  stars  in  his 
firmament  were  those  which  had  shed  luminous  rays  upon  the  world  of 
literature  and  had  helped  rid  it  of  the  darkness  of  ignorance,  for- 
malism, and  artificiality;  stars  which  reflected  sincerity,  high 
ambitions  and  purposes,  real  poetic  fire  and  brilliance,  - stars  whicli 
were  true  to  their  destiny.  For  such  as  these  his  enthusiasm  was 
boundless,  and  with  them  his  dramatic  criticism  is  chiefly  concerned. 


l.Gdsse's  Life,  p 85 


12 


CHAPTER  II 

Shakespearean  Criticism 

®I  have  never  been  able  to  see  what  should  attract  men  to  the 

profession  of  criticism  but  the  noble  pleasure  of  praising."^  "My 

chief  aim,  as  my  chief  pleasure,  has  been  rather  to  acknowledge 

and  applaud  what  I found  noble  and  precious  than  to  scrutinise  and 

2 

stigmatize  what  I might  perceive  to  be  worthless  and  base." 

The  attitude  of  Swinburne  embodied  in  the  words  just  quoted 
is  especially  discernible  in  his  Shakespearean  criticism.  It  cannot 
be  gainsaid  that  too  often  our  critic  takes  as  much  pure  pleasure  in 
condemning  as  in  praising,  but  in  his  work  on  Shakespeare  the  domi- 
nant note  is,  almost  to  a fault,  reverential  and  eulogistic.  This 
is  his  characteristic  habit  of  mind  wherever  Shakespeare  is  concerned 
and  it  strikes  the  keynote  of  hie  three  books  on  the  great  dramatist, 
- A Study  of  Shakespeare.  1680j  Shakespeare . 1S05,  first  published 
in  1909;  and  Three  Plays  of  Shakespeare.  1909. 

Swinburne  was  an  impressionistic  critic,  as  is  plainly  evi- 
denced in  his  work  on  Shakespeare.  Swinburne  is  to  be  seen  behind 
and  beneath  it  all,  choosing  for  discussion  the  qualities  which  ap- 
peal to  Swinburne,  emphasizing  the  traits  which  are  characteristic 
of  Swinburne,  lavishing  praise  upon  those  points  which  seem  to 
Swinburne  especially  fine,  bestowing  but  casual  remarks  or  passing 
over  altogether  matters  which,  though  of  importance  to  other  critics, 
do  not  intrigue  the  intelledtual  fancy  or  lay  claim  to  the  emotional 
senses  of  Swinburne.  It  will  be  my  purpose  in  this  and  the  remaining 

1.  Quoted  in  Welby's  Swinburne . p 72,  from  Notes  of  1866. 

2.  Swinburne,  preface  to  Essays  and  Studies,  1875,  p VIII. 


•:  I,".' 


‘ , '.  1*.^  A-  • ^ .^  ' .’•/!1B 

* ^ ' ' »•  ’ . * •*■>  ' • % ^ 

^0  itfcr  ^f.Zo'i-ftrrQ 

If’*  * *■  _ ^ '.  V '*.'  ' *^.  ";  fc 

ci^J'  ijJ^;-:..  iit-az*;.  C»ri  — ^’-  ,tal^  idtrff- 

I ■ ' ^ » '■  •■T^«r“'' • ■ 

V ■t>.'j'-  5*.  H6t'.^:x5  •, ^ u^y*-  hr ^44k- 


r v.  ■ 

V;- 


• ^•»**v*  vt'^X-vTOfr  W'»icvff<ir'-cr4?ii|.j^j  I.  ted" 


Vv< 


“i.Tjoi  0 M?r- .'TO 

• •■  '.'''•  > , ' - ' , " ’ ' ‘"f  '..^i.  3 ..'#^-^V.-5'',  K- 


\:t/ 


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1 ' |^'>ji-  -rTA  *j4ajt>;&os.S,  .a'v  ^ ^.e' Ktfii;*  ii  -,| 

'■  I:  •«^-''  ^ ^ i ax^  . , t>»vi4sil^t0i^'' 


13 

chapters  to  show  in  what  way  Swinburne *s  personal  characteristics  be- 
come a part  of  his  critical  faculties,  how  far  this  enhances  or  im- 
pairs the  value  of  his  work,  and  whether  his  work  on  the  whole  ehoulc 
rank  him  as  a good  or  a bad  critic.  And  in  considering  Swinburne  as 
an  impressionistic  critic,  it  will  be  well  to  bear  in  mind  Mr.  Coul- 
son  Kernahan’s  comment  upon  the  difficulty  of  judging  such  men;- 
"How  is  it  possible  to  judge  men  and  women  of  genius,  - men  and  womer 
to  whose  great  brains  the  live  blood  rushes  at  a thought  or  at  a 
word;  whose  passions  are  like  a laid  fuse,  ready  to  take  fire  and  to 
explode  the  mind  at  a touch  - by  the  same  standard  which  we  apply  to 
the  cold-blooded,  sluggish-brained,  lethargic  and  perhaps  mors  for- 
tunate mortals  to  whom  impulse  is  unknown,  upon  whom  passion  has  no 
sway,  and  who  rarely  commit  themselves  to  any  expression  or  to  any 
action,  noble  or  mean,  wise  or  indiscreet,  without  first  of  all  care- 
fully weighing  the  results  and  counting  up  the  costs, Or  as  Mr. 
Welby  writes,-  ”To  demand  of  such  a poet  that  he  should  be  less  easi- 
ly moved,  that  he  should  choose  more  wisely  from  among  his  emotional 
experiences,  is  to  demand  that  he  shall  deny  his  genius,"^ 

The  style  of  the  three  essays  on  Shakespeare  is  distinctly 
Swinburnian.  In  his  criticism  as  in  his  conversation,  when  he  might 
speak  of  a telegraph  pole  as  "an  incomparably  disgusting  object," 
Swinburne  dealt  in  superlatives,  heaping  adjedtive  upon  adjective 
until  the  otherwise  admirable  choice  of  words  lost  power  through  con- 
stant usage.  Mention  has  previously  been  made  of  the  intoxicating 
effect  of  words  upon  him.  He  revelled  in  a drift  of  antitheses, 
similles  and  metaphors,  and  wound  himself  into  the  intricacies  of 

1.  Kernahan:  In  Good  Company,  p 5. 

2.  Welby' 8 Swinburne,  p 190. 


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14 


ling:uistio  mazes.  In  one  of  his  studies  of  Shakespeare  we  find  this: 
"It  is  a truth  more  curious  than  difficult  to  verify  that  there  was 
a time  when  the  greatest  genius  ever  known  among  the  sons  of  men  was 
uncertain  of  the  future  and  unsure  of  the  task  before  itj  when  the 
one  unequalled  and  unapproachable  master  of  the  one  supreme  art  which 
implies  and  includes  the  mastery  of  the  one  supreme  science  precep- 
tible  and  accessible  by  man  stood  hesitating  between  the  impulsive 
instinct  for  dramatic  poetry,  the  crown  and  consummation  of  all  phil- 
osophies, the  living  incarnation  of  creative  and  intelligent  god- 
head, and  the  facile  seduction  of  elegiac  and  idyllic  verse,  of  medi 
tative  and  ■uncreative  song:  between  the  music  of  Orpheus  and  the 
music  of  Tibullus."^  Or  again,  "It  was  his  and  his  alone  to  set  be- 
fore us  the  tragic  problem  of  character  and  event,  of  all  action  and 
all  passion,  all  evil  and  all  good,  all  natural  joy  and  sorrow  of 
chance  and  change,  in  such  fullness  and  perfection  of  variety,  with 
such  harmony  and  supremacy  of  justice  and  of  truth,  that  no  man 
known  to  historic  record  ever  glorified  the  world  whom  it  would  have 
been  so  utterly  natural  and  comparatively  rational  to  fall  down  be- 
fore and  worship  as  a god.  For  nothing  human  is  ever  for  a moment 
above  the  reach  or  beyond  the  scope  or  beneath  the  notice  of  his  all 
but  superhiiman  genius."^  For  the  purpose  of  comparison,  let  us  note 
what  Hazlitt,  an  equally  sincere  and  reverential  admirer  of 
Shakespeare,  though  more  restrained  and  careful  in  the  expression  of 
his  approbation,  has  to  say  of  the  master  dramatist.  Hazlitt,  while 
belonging  to  the  impressionistic  school  of  critics,  does  not  allov/ 
his  enthusiasm  to  sweep  him  off  his  feet  into  a tangle  of  hyphenated 


1.  Swinburne,  Three  Plays,  pp  5-9-60. 

2.  Swinburne,  Three  Plays,  pp  43-4. 


15 

words  or  a cumulative  surge  of  adjectives  of  the  superlative  degree. 
He  says  just  as  much  as  Swinburne,  but  his  style  is  simple,  clear, 
concise;  there  is  no  need  to  sift  hie  sentences  or  to  trs^nslate  them 
into  English  of  "human  nature's  daily  food."  This  quotation  from 
his  lecture  on  Shakespeare  and  Milton  will  serve  to  illustrate  the 
foregoing  remarks:-  "He  was  nothing  in  himself,  but  he  was  all  that 
others  were,  or  that  they  could  become.  Hie  genius  shone  equally  on 
the  evil  and  on  the  good,  on  the  wise  and  the  foolish,  the  monarch 
and  the  beggar.  He  was  like  the  genius  of  humanity,  changing  places 
with  all  of  us  at  pleasure,  and  playing  with  our  purposes  as  with 
his  own.  He  turned  the  globe  round  for  his  amusement,  and  surveyed 
the  generations  of  men,  and  the  individuals  as  they  passed,  with 
their  different  concerns,  passions,  follies,  vices,  virtues,  actions, 
and  motives  - as  well  those  that  they  knew  as  those  which  they  did 
not  know,  or  acknowledge  to  themselves.  Years  are  melted  down  to 
moments  and  every  instant  teems  with  fate."^  Let  us  follow  this  witl 
one  more  quotation  from  Swinburne,  a sentence  from  hie  discussion  of 
Cymbeline:-  "Here  above  all  is  the  most  heavenly  triad  of  figures 
that  ever  even  Shakespeare  brought  together;  as  it  were  a living  god- 
garland  of  the  noblest  earthborn  brothers  and  love-worthiest  heaven- 
born  sister. "2 

Much  the  same  effect  of  the  intoxication  of  language  for  the 
poet  is  to  be  noticed  in  another  aspect  of  his  criticism  which  is 
peculiarly  Swinburnian.  He  seems  to  wish  to  impart  to  us  through 
the  magic  of  the  words  he  usee  the  atmosphere  of  the  play  under  con- 
sideration, and  he  often  times  spends  almost  as  much  time  in 

1.  Hazlitt,  Works,  ed.  Waller  and  Glover,  1902,  V.5,  p 47ff. 


. fiiK'  WJl  »t t' ,t  Iti;- » ^1 


L,  rtf' <hJ*' 

5i[ V '.'  / ^ ^5.ft ’;Ufe‘'^' ii ' i'  "s  |:si  v ^ jp-ji  ■ ^ f i uk'i ;,_.i 


oni 


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16 

introducing  us  into  the  spirit  of  the  play  as  he  does  in  actual 
criticism.  In  writing  of  Pericles. he  talks  of  the  “blood-red  Tyrian 
purple  of  tragic  maternal  jealousy;  the  flower-soft  loveliness  of 
maiden  lamentation  over  the  flower-strewn  seaside  grave  of  Marina's 
old  sea-tossed  nurse;  the  storm  above  all  storms  ever  raised  in 
poetry  - it  blows  and  sounds  and  shines  and  rings  and  thunders  and 
lightens  far  ahead  of  all  others."^  We  are  placed  in  the  midst  of 
the  elemental  passions  involved  in  the  play  of  King  Lear  in  the  fol- 
lowing manner:-  "We  look  upv/ard  and  doi/mward,  and  in  vain,  into  the 
deepest  things  of  nature,  into  the  highest  things  of  providence;  to 
the  roots  of  life,  and  to  the  stars;  from  the  roots  that  no  God  watei 
to  the  Stars  that  give  no  man  light,  over  a world  full  of  death  and 
life  without  resting  place  or  guidance.  In  this  most  tragic  of 
tragedies  the  sovereign  and  incarnate  god  of  pity  and  terror  can  be 
said  to  have  struck  with  all  hie  strength  a chord  of  which  the  reso- 
nance could  excite  such  angry  agony  and  heartbreak  of  wrath  as  that 
of  the  brother  kings  when  they  emote  their  staffs  against  the  ground 
in  fierce  imperious  anguish  of  agonized  and  rebellious  compassion, 
at  the  oracular  cry  of  Calchas  for  the  innocent  blood  of  Iphigenia. 

This  habit  of  speaking  in  the  superlative  sometimes  leads  the 
critic  into  contradictions  of  a minor  nature.  For  example,  in  the 
Study  of  Shakespeare.  1880,  he  speaks  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  as  "the 
loveliest  of  love  plays,"  and  in  Shakespeare . 1905,  says  that 
Anthony  and  Cleopatra  is  "the  greatest  love-poem  of  all  time;"3  in 

1.  Swinburne,  Study.  1880,  p 208. 

3.  Swinburne:  Study . 1880,  pp  171,  ff. 

3.  Swinburne:  Study . 1860,  pp  226-7. 


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the  Study  of  1880  he  calls  King  Lear  "the  most  tragic  of  tragedies,"^ 
and  In  Three  Plays  of  Shakespeare,  1905,  applies  exactly  the  saine 


9 

words  to  Othello."'  I was  able  to  discover  but  one  other  contradic- 
tion or  distinct  change  of  feeling  in  all  hie  Shakespearean  criti- 
cism worthy  of  note,  though  this  was  not  due  to  the  defect  in  style 

just  mentioned.  In  the  Study  of  1880,  in  discussing  Shakespeare's 

0" 

treatment  of  the  original  Taming  of  the  Shrew.  Swinburne  says,-  "The 

recast  of  it  shows  tact  and  delicacy  perhaps  without  a parallel 

in  literature.  No  chance  of  improvement  is  missed,  while  nothing 
of  value  is  dropped  or  thrown  away."^  But  in  the  Shakespeare  of 
1905,  with  the  same  subject  under  consideration,  we  find  these  words: 
"Though  Shakespeare  has  in  some  degree  toned  down  the  somewhat  rough 
and  broad  brutality  of  the  original  humor,  he  has  rather  refined 

than  improved  on  it.  And  he  has  not  only  struck  out  one  Or  two 

fine  touches  of  living  hiimor,  he  has  cancelled  the  whole  of  the  ad- 
mirable conclusion  or  dramatic  epilogue  which  is  morally  and  dra- 
matically necessary  to  complete  and  harmonize  the  work  as  a comic 
poem. 

Shakespeare's  marvellous  power  of  character  creation  made  a great 
appeal  to  Swinburne.  He  never  ceased  to  wonder  at  the  knowledge  of 
human  nature  and  the  unerring  instinct  in  the  portrayal  of  it  evinced 
by  the  master  dramatist,  as  well  as  his  judgment  in  the  combination 
of  certain  characters  or  sets  of  characters.  Of  men  and  of  women 

1.  Swinburne:  Study . 1880,  p 176. 

2.  Swinburne:  Three  Plavs.  1909,  p 55. 

3.  Swinburne;  Study . 1880,  p 125. 

4.  Swinburne;  Shakespeare . 1905,  p 28. 


c-iV'A>  W'lM'-  frf-Isip  *)il  o-ofiX  e;i4' 


rv. 


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V • . . * , ' '•^•>-  •3 

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"■  ■ ■'  ■ • . ^ -'  .' 

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■4.^ 


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'■  ‘■.■■'kf  ',  0 'S 


18 

there  is  no  poet  who  has  created  so  many  so  surely  endowed  with 
everlasting  life.  All  that  can  he  known  of  manhood,  of  womanhood, 
and  of  childhood,  he  knew  better  than  any  man  ever  born."^ 
Shakespeare,  at  the  opening  of  the  second  stage  of  his  work,  began 
to  give  "proof  of  a power  never  shared  in  like  measure  by  the  mighti- 
est among  the  sons  of  men,  a sovereign  and  serene  capacity  to  fathom 
the  else  unfathomable  depths  of  spiritual  nature,  to  solve  its  else 
insoluble  riddles, "2  "For  the  first  time  in  all  the  literature  of 
the  world  we  are  confronted  with  a great  as  well  as  a greatly  wicked 
man"  (King  Richard  III),®  "The  incomparable  genius  of  the  greatest 
among  all  poets  and  all  men  approved  itself  incomparable  forever  by 
the  possibly  unconsolous  instinct  which  in  this  supreme  work  induced 
or  compelled  him  to  set  side  by  side  the  very  lowest  and  the  very 
highest  types  of  imaginable  humanity.  Kent  and  Oswald,  Regan  and 
Cordelia,  stand  out  in  such  relief  against  each  other  that  Shakes- 
peare alone  could  have  wrought  their  several  figures  into  one  perfect 
scheme  of  spiritual  harmony,"^  The  figures  of  Cordelia,  Kent,  and 
the  Fool  form  a "heavenly  counterpoise  against  such  a triad  of  most 
toad-spotted  traitors."®  "As  surely  as  Othello  is  the  noblest  man 
of  man's  making,  lago  is  the  most  perfect  evil-doer,  the  most  potent 
demi-devil. ”6 


Swinburne: 

Shakespeare , 

1905, 

P 

83 

Swinburne : 

Study,  p 77. 

Swinburne : 

Shakespeare . 

1905, 

P 

13 

Swinburne : 

Three  Plays. 

1909, 

P 

12 

Swinburne: 

Shakespeare . 

1905, 

P 

66 

Swinburne : 

Study.  1880. 

p 177 

••  < .... 


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19 

Being  so  essentially  a poet  himself,  Swinburne  is  especially 
interested  in  the  poetry  of  Shakespeare,  and  in  the  struggle  for 
mastery  evidenced  in  his  earlier  work  between  rhyme  and  blank  verse. 
The  epitome  of  his  discussion  of  the  latter  question  may  be  found  in 
an  excerpt  from  the  Study  of  1880,-  "In  this  play,  (King  Henry  VI. 
Part  I),  then,  more  decisively  than  in  Titus  Andronicus.  we  find 
Shakespeare  at  work,  so  to  speak,  with  both  hands  - with  his  left 
hand  of  rhyme,  and  hie  right  hand  of  blank  verse.  The  left  is  loth 
to  forego  the  practice  of  its  peculiar  music;  yet,  as  the  action  of 
the  right  grows  freer,  it  becomes  more  and  more  certain  that  the  oth- 
er must  cease  playing,  under  pain  of  producing  mere  discord  and  dis- 
turbance in  the  scheme  of  tragic  harmony."^  Swinburne's  admiration 
for  Shakespeare  as  a poet  is  boundless,  and  is  expressed  over  and 
over  in  hyperbolic  terms.  A few  examples  from  the  many  possible  ones 
will  be  enough  to  illustrate  this.  "A  Midsummer  Night  * s Dream  is 
outside  as  well  as  above  all  possible  or  imaginable  criticism.  It 
is  probably  or  rather  surely  the  most  beautiful  work  of  man.  No 
human  hand  can  ever  have  bequeathed  us  anything  properly  or  rational- 
ly comparable  with  this."^  "Out  of  this  material  (Troilus  and  Cres- 
sida)  Shakespeare  has  been  pleased  to  fashion  some  of  the  most  glori- 
ous poetry  in  the  world.  The  majesty,  the  magnificence,  the 

depth  and  breadth  of  creative  thought,  the  height  and  reach  of  in- 
terpretative imagination,  which  inform  and  inspire  the  matchless 

3 

music  of  the  verse  ".  "The  Winter's  Tale  is  as  unique  among 

poems  as  Shakespeare  is  among  men.  Such  a divinely  human  and 

1.  Swinburne:  Study . 1880,  p 34. 

2.  Swinburne:  Shakespeare . 1905,  p 33. 

3.  Swinburne:  Shakespeare . 1905,  p 47. 


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20 

naturally  superhuman  melody  as  no  touch  but  one  musician’s  could 
leave  to  vibrate  forever  in  the  ear  of  the  spirit."^  "Of  poetry  pure 
and  simple,  imaginative  and  sublime,  there  is  no  master  who  has  left 
us  more. "2  "In  Othello  we  get  the  pure  poetry  of  natural  and  per- 
sonal emotion."^ 

Swinburne  shows  his  fondness  for  classical  drama  by  repeated 
references  to  the  dramatists  of  the  classic  periods,  and  comparison 
of  their  work  with  that  of  the  men  he  is  passing  under  review. 
Aeschylus  is  to  him  poetry  incarnate,  the  only  man  with  whom  Shakes- 
peare can  be  ranked.  "The  tragedy  of  King  Lear,  like  the  triology 
of  the  OrestejLa,  is  a thing  incomparable  and  unique.  Outside  the  work 

of  Aeschylus,  there  is  no  such  poetry  in  the  world no  such 

realism."^  "In  all  poetic  or  dramatic  or  patriotic  literature  there 
is  nothing  of  its  kind  comparable  with  the  Persae  of  Aeschylus  but 
Shakespeare’s  King  Henry  V. "Shakespeare  excelled  all  other  men  of 
all  time  as  a poet  in  the  most  proper  and  literal  sense  - as  a 
creator  of  men  and  women.  In  the  more  technical  and  lyrical  sense  of 
the  word,  no  lees  than  in  height  of  phophetic  pov/er,  in  depth  of 
reconciling  and  atoning  inspiration,  he  is  excelled  by  Aeschylus; 
though  surely,  on  the  latter  score,  by  Aeschylus  alone."®  "As  a poet 
and  thinker,  Aeschylus  was  the  equal,  if  not  the  superior,  of 
Shakespeare;  as  a creator,  a revealer,  an  interpreter,  infinite  in 

1.  Swinburne:  Shakespeare.  1905,  p 54. 

2.  Ibid,  p 82. 

3.  Swinburne:  Three  Plays,  p 55. 

4.  Swinburne:  Three  Plays.  1909,  p 5. 

5.  Ibid,  p 24. 

6.  Ibid,  p 42. 


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21 


his  insight  and  his  truthfulness,  his  tenderness  and  hie  wisdom,  his 
justice  and  his  mercy,  no  man  who  ever  lived  can  stand  beside  the 
author  of  Othello."^ 

But  Aeschylus  was  not  the  only  man  who  exerted  a considerable 
influence  upon  Swinburne's  thought,  and  the  poet,  bending  now  under 
one  influence  and  now  under,  according  as  the  star  of  Hugo,  of  Landoi 
of  Mazzini  or  of  Watts-Dunton  happened  to  be  in  the  ascendency,  was 
interested  in  tracing  the  effect  upon  Shakespeare  of  other  men's 
work.  Greene  exerted  an  influence  upon  Shakespeare  which  is  es- 
pecially obvious  in  King  Richard  II  . To  the  critic,  the  "legendary 
choice  of  Hercules  was  of  lees  moment  than  the  actual  choice  of 
Shakespeare  between  the  influence  of  Robert  Greene  and  the  influence 
of  Christopher  Marlowe."  The  influence  of  Marlowe  is  more  predomi- 
nant in  King  Richard  III  than  in  any  other  of  Shakespeare's  plays, 
though  "in  all  his  earliest  historic  plays,  the  influence  of  the 
older  poet,  the  echo  of  hie  style,  the  iteration  of  his  manner,  may 
perpetually  be  traced."'^  From  Rabelais,  another  important  factor  in 
Shakespeare's  earlier  work,  he  "learnt  nothing  and  borrowed  nothing 
that  was  not  wise  and  good  and  sweet  and  clean  and  pure.  The  come- 
dies of  Twelfth  Night  and  As  You  Like  It  stand  forth  confessed  as 
the  common  offering  of  the  same  spiritual  period  by  force  and  by 
right  of  the  trace  or  badge  they  proudly  and  professedly  bear  in 
common,  as  of  a recent  touch  from  the  ripe  and  rich  and  radiant  in- 

4 

fluence  of  Rabelais." 

Closely  connected  with  the  question  of  influence,  and  of 

1.  Swinburne:  Three  Plays.  1909,  p 55. 

2.  Swinburne:  Three  Plays.  1909,  p 60. 

3.  Swinburne:  Study . I860,  p 52. 

4.  Swinburne:  Study.  1880,  pp  156-7. 


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32 

almost  equal  interest  to  Swinburne,  is  Shakespeare's  treatment  of 
his  originals.  He  is  highly  pleased  that  Shakespeare  was  inspired  to 
fuse  together  the  legend  of  Lear  and  his  daughters  with  the  story  of 
Gloucester  and  his  sons,  and  with  the  revised  solution.  "To  have 
turned  the  ugly  and  unmanageable  legend  of  Gordella's  ultimate  sui- 
cide in  prison  into  the  glory  of  a martyrdom  unmatched  for  its  tragic 
effect  of  terror  and  of  pity,  to  have  made  its  inevitable  conse- 
quence the  agony  which  now  strikes  out  not  the  reason  but  the  life 
of  her  father,  is  the  supreme  feat  of  Shakespeare  as  a spiritual 
craftsman."^  Swinb\irne  regrets  that  Shakespeare  had  not  used  in 
Romeo  and  Juliet  the  narrative  of  Bandello  instead  of  an  Inferior 
and  suiulterated  version  of  the  tale.  The  finest  Incident  in  the 
story,  the  last  words  interchanged  by  the  dying  Romeo  and  Juliet 
"would  have  been  the  tenderest  and  noblest  passage  in  the  loveliest 
of  all  tragedies  of  love."^  In  his  discussion  of  the  tale  of  bar- 
baric butchery  which  was  the  original  of  Othello . Swinburne  remarks: 
"Such  humorous  realism  - and  it  is  excellent  of  its  kind  - as  half 
relieves  and  half  intensifies  the  horror  of  Cinthio's  tale  may  serve 
as  well  as  any  other  point  of  difference  to  show  with  what  matchless 
tact  of  transfiguration  by  selection  and  rejection  the  hand  of 
Shakespeare  wrought  hie  will  and  set  his  mark  on  the  materials  left 
ready  for  it  by  the  hand  of  a lesser  genius."®  Comparisons  such  as 
these  besides  marking  the  later  poet's  taste,  show  as  well  his  splen- 
did range  of  reading,  which  was  of  inestimable  value  to  him  in  his 
critical  work. 

1.  Swinburne:  Shakespeare . 1905,  pp  66-7. 

2.  Swinburne:  Shakespeare . 1905,  p 9. 


3.  Swinburhe:  Three  Plays.  1909,  p 44 


23 

From  the  discussion  of  the  sources  of  Shakespeare's  plays, 
Swinburne  turns  to  the  Shakespeare  apocr3rpha.  Than  our  critic,  none 
was  better  able  to  pronounce  upon  this  subject.  Swinburne's  piercing 
insight  into  a matter  which  so  intrigued  his  interest,  his  delicate 
aesthetic  sense,  his  brilliant  intuition  of  spiritual  harmonies 
rather  than  technical  similarities,  stand  him  in  good  stead  in  con- 
sidering such  a problem.  Of  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen  he  has  this  to 
say:-  "In  the  play  which  is  undoubtedly  the  joint  work  of  these  two 
poets  (Shakespeare  and  Fletcher)  the  points  of  contact  and  the  points 
of  disunion  are  unmistakable  by  the  youngest  eye.  In  the  very  last 
scene  of  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen  we  can  tell  with  absolute  certainty 
what  speeches  were  appended  or  interpolated  by  Fletcher."^  "Even 
setting  apart  for  once  and  for  a moment  the  sovereign  evidence  of 
mere  style,  we  must  recognize  a beautiful  and  significant  ex- 

ample of  that  loyal  and  loving  fidelity  to  the  minor  passing  sugges- 
tions of  Chaucer's  text  which  on  all  possible  occasions  of  such  com- 
parison so  markedly  and  vividly  distinguishes  the  work  of  Shakes- 
peare's from  the  work  of  Fletcher's  hand.  (Other  passages  are)  exact 
and  typical  examples  of  Fletcher's  tragically  prosaic  and  prosaical- 
ly tragic  dash  of  incurable  commonplace."^  Of  Arden  of  Fever sham 
he  feels  that  "the  wonderful  skill,  absoluteness  of  intuition  and 
inspiration,  with  which  every  stroke  is  put  in  that  touches  off 
character  or  tones  down  effect,  seems  siniply  logical  and  just  to  set 
doY/n  this  poem  as  the  possible  work  of  no  man's  youthful  hand  but 
Shakespeare's,"^  "In  The  Yorkshire  Tragedy  the  submissive  devotion 
of  the  miserable  heroine  to  her  maddened  husband  is  merely  doglike. 

1.  Swinburne:  Study . 1880,  p 90. 

2.  Ibid,  p 216. 

3.  Ibid,  p 136. 


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34 

There  is  no  likeness  in  this  poor  and  trampled  figure  to  'one  of 
Shakespeare's  women',  - Griselda  was  no  ideal  of  his."^  While 
Swinburne  recognizes  in  King  Henry  VIII  that  "much  of  the  play  is  ex- 
ternally as  like  the  usual  style  of  Fletcher  as  it  is  unlike  the  usual 

style  of  Shakespeare,  yet  there  is  an  aptness  of  phrase,  or 

abstinence  from  excess,  a 'plentiful  lack'  of  mere  flowery  and  super- 
fluous beauties,  which  we  may  rather  wish  than  hope  to  find  in  the 
most  famous  of  Shakespeare's  successors.  The  author  is  content  to 
dispense  with  all  the  violent  or  far-fetched  or  fantastic  excitement 
from  which  Fletcher  could  hardly  ever  bring  himself  completely  to 
abstain. 

Instances  of  adverse  criticism  of  Shakespeare  are  rare  in 
Swinburne.  Though  the  latter  cannot  himself  escape  the  charge  of  be- 
ing at  times  rhetorical  and  bombastic,  he  recognizes  this  quality  as 
a defect  in  Shakespeare's  earlier  work.  "Of  all  Shakespeare's  plays 
King  John  and  King  Henry  VIII  are  the  most  rhetorical;  there  is  more 
talk  than  song  in  them,  less  poetry  than  oratory. "The  same  ef- 
fusion or  effervescence  of  words  is  perceptible  in  King  Richard  II 
as  in  the  greater  (and  the  less  good)  part  of  Romeo  and  Juliet."^ 

"In  King  Richard  II  the  rhetorical  quality  is  for  the  most  part 

in  excess  of  the  dramatic."®  The  form  or  dramatic  construction  of 
Shakespeare's  plays  does  not  interest  Swinburne'  at  all,  unless,  as 
in  one  instance,  the  play  does  not  satisfy  his  artistic  sense  of 

1.  Swinburne:  Study . 1880,  p 142. 

2.  Ibid,  pp  83,  85. 

3.  Ibid,  p 69. 

4.  Ibid,  p 37, 

5.  Ibid,  p 43, 


35 

unity,  and  then  it  is  mentioned  as  a defect  in  Shakespeare's  art. 

The  comment  is  that  of  a poet  and  artist  rather  than  that  of  a crit- 
ic. If  his  sense  of  the  necessity  of  the  perfect  unity  and  blended 
whole  of  a piece  is  satisfied,  he  is  content;  if  not,  his  manner  of 
voicing  his  disapproval  of  it,  as  I have  said,  is  the  mark  of  a 
poetical  rather  than  of  a critical  temperament.  The  following  ex- 
ample, which  is  purely  Swinburnian,  is  to  be  found  in  the  discussion 
of  King  John  and  King  Henry  VIII  in  the  Study  of  1880.  "Scene  is 
laid  upon  scene,  and  event  succeeds  event,  as  stone  might  be  laid 
upon  stone,  and  story  might  succeed  story  in  a building  reared  by 
mere  might  of  human  handiwork;  not  as  in  a city  or  temple  whose  walls 
had  risen  of  themselves  to  the  lyric  breadth  and  stroke  of  a greater 
than  Amphion."^ 

But  the  greater  part  of  Swinburne's  criticism  which  is  not 
altogether  encomiastic  is  called  forth  by  Shakespeare's  occasional 
failure  to  observe  poetic  justice,  equity  and  moral  fitness,  as  the 
critic  conceived  it  should  have  been  done.  He  quotes  the  meting  out 
of  perfect  justice  to  Hotspur  and  to  Hal  alike  as  sufficient  to 
prove  "the  flawless  equity,  the  impeccable  intelligence,  the  il- 
limitable syn^athy  and  infallible  apprehension  of  noble  nature  and 
2 

living  truth,"  to  be  found  in  Shakespeare.  But  that  he  did  not  con- 
sider hie  equity  absolutely  flawless  after  all  is  obvious  a few 
pages  farther  on  in  the  same  book,  in  his  discussion  of  As  You  Like 

It.  "There  is  something  questionable  in  the  rapid  and  facile 

transformation  of  character  from  atrocity  to  penitence  and  from 
tyranny  to  asceticism  which  serve  to  wind  up  the  action  so 

1.  Swinburne:  Study.  1.880,  p 69. 

2.  Swinburne:  Shakespeare . 1905,  p 23, 


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26 

comfortably  and  so  suddenly,  so  instantly  and  so  easily.  Even 

in  the  half-heavenly  forest  of  Arden,  we  cannot  but  feel  that  some- 
thing of  a breach  is  made  in  the  natural  law  of  moral  instinct  by  the 
mere  prospect  of  union  between  the  very  vilest  of  intending  fratri- 
cides and  the  very  sweetest  of  sisterly  friends.  Even  fairyland  has 
its  ethics."^  The  same  defect  is  observed  in  the  solution  of  Measure 
for  Measure.  "It  is  undeniable  that  for  such  monsters  of  base  and 
abject  atrocity  as  Oliver  and  Angelo  a lifelong  seclusion  from  inter- 
course with  the  humanity  they  dishonour  would  be  the  irreducible  mini- 
mum of  the  penalty  demanded  rather  than  deserved  by  their  crimes  of 
intention  and  of  action.  This  moral  defect  in  the  equity  of  dramatic 
art  for  once  or  twice  brings  down  Shake ^eare  as  a playwright  to  the 
ethical  level  of  Fletcher. "2  Swinburne  objects  to  Trollus  and  Cres- 
sida  on  moral  grounds,  and  regrets  that  two  such  characters  as 
Pandaras  and  Ther sites  should  occur  in  the  scheme  of  a single  play. 
This  may  seem  singular  in  an  author  whose  Poems  and  Ballads  of  1866 
created  such  a furor  of  virulent  attack,  in  which  the  poet  was  called 
"an  unclean  fiery  imp  from  the  pit,"  "the  libidinous  laureate  of  a 
pack  of  satyrs",  a man  who  had  "revealed  to  the  world  a mind  all 
aflame  with  the  feverish  carnality  of  a schoolboy,  over  the  dirtiest 

JZ 

passages  in  Lenqpriere",  that  the  publisher  immediately  withdrew  the 
book  from  sale.  But  Swinburne,  however  he  might  himself  write,  was 
quick  to  note  the  presence  or  absence  of  moral  tone  in  the  plays  he 
criticized,  and  to  praise  or  condemn  accordingly.  And  a dramatist 
who  preached  failed  as  signally  in  Swinburne's  estimation  as  one  whos( 

1.  Swinburne:  Shakespeare . 1905,  p 38. 

2.  Ibid,  p 39. 

3.  Quoted  in  Gosse's  Life . p 152. 


27 

plays  were  altogether  lacking  in  moral  tone.  His  artistic  sense  de- 
manded the  observance  of  the  golden  mean  in  the  work  he  admired. 
Swinburne  makes  a comment  upon  the  witches  in  Macbeth  which  seems  to 
me  original  and  e^eoially  fine,  and  which  shows  the  critic's  deli- 
cate sense  of  the  fitness  of  things.  "It  seems  too  great  and  strange 
a transmutation  and  downfall  that  the  prophetic  agents  of  a doom 
sublime  enough  to  change  the  face  of  kingdoms  and  destroy  the  souls 
of  heroes  should  be  found  begging  chestnuts  and  killing  swine. 
Middleton's  witches  would  disdain  such  work;  it  is  hardly  worthy  of 
the  village  crones  rather  photographed  than  painted  by  Heywood,  by 
Dekker,  and  by  Ford."^  The  same  nice  sensitiveness  prompts  the  fol- 
lowing sympathetic  remark  upon  the  Fool  in  King  Lear.  :-"We  cannot 
honestly  overlook  the  one  great  and  grave  oversight  or  flaw  to  be 
found  in  this  tragic  work:  the  sudden  and  inexplicable  disappearance 
of  Lear's  only  comrade  and  support  in  the  first  horror  of  his  expos- 
ure as  an  outcast  to  the  storm.  That  the  Fool  should  vanish 

with  the  tempest,  never  more  to  be  thought  of  or  mentioned  by  Lear  or 
by  Cordelia,  can  neither  be  explained  or  excused  by  any  possible 
audacity  or  felicity  of  conjecture."^  Such  ardent  sympathy,  such  in- 
tuitive understanding  and  appreciation  are  chief  among  the  delightful 
aspects  of  Swinburne's  Shakespearean  criticism. 

Another  feature  of  Swinburne's  criticism  which  is  unique,  and 
which  pleases  or  displeases  the  reader  in  varying  degrees,  is  his 
habit  of  introducing  little  touches  which  show  his  personal  interests 
and  prejudices.  Swinburne  was  intensely  patriotic,  and  a zealous 
champion  of  the  cause  of  liberty.  This  characteristic  comes  to  the 

1.  Swinburne:  Shakespeare . 1905,  p 62. 

2.  Swinburne:  Shakespeare.  1905,  p 67. 

3.  Swinburne;  Study.  1880.  p 175.  


28 

front  over  and  over  again  in  his  criticism.  He  delights  in  discover- 
ing in  his  favorite  poet  feelings  similar  to  those  which  he  himself 
entertained.  "A  poet  of  revolution  he  is  not,  as  none  of  his  country- 

in  that  generation  could  have  been,  but  the  author  of  Julius 

Caesar  has  approved  himself  in  the  best  and  highest  sense  of  the  word 
at  least  potentially  a republican. In  the  same  Study.  Swinburne 
speaks  of  "the  national  side  of  Shakespeare's  genius,  the  vein  of 

patriotism  that  runs  like  a thread  of  living  fire  through  the  world- 

2 

wide  range  of  hie  omnipresent  spirit."  Of  the  opening  scene  in  the 
second  act  of  King  Richard  II.  Swinburne  says,  "It  is  not  of  the 
speaker  or  the  hearer  that  we  think  as  we  read  the  most  passionate 
panegyric  on  hie  country  ever  set  to  hymnal  harmonies  by  the  greatest 

3 

of  patriotic  poets  but  Aeschylus  alone:  it  is  of  England."  He 

feels  justified  in  considering  Shakespeare  a free  thinker  and  a 
socialist.  "That  Shakespeare  was  in  the  genuine  sense,  - that  is, 
in  the  best  and  highest  and  widest  meaning  of  the  term  - a free 
thinker  this  otheinnrise  practically  and  avowedly  superfluous  effusion 
(soliloquy  on  reason  and  resolution)  of  all  inmost  thought  appears  to 
me  to  supply  full  and  sufficient  evidence  for  the  conviction  of  every 

4 

candid  and  rational  man."  "There  is  evidence  given  in  King  Lear 
of  a sympathy  with  the  mass  of  social  misery  more  wide  and  deep  and 
direct  and  bitter  and  tender  than  Shakespeare  has  shown  elsewhere. 

He  has  avowed  himself  in  the  only  good  and  rational  sense  of  the 
words  a spiritual  if  not  a political  democrat  and  socialist."® 

1. Swinburne:  Study . 1880,  p 175. 

2.  Ibid,  p 73. 

3.  Swinburne:  Three  Plays.  1909,  p 68. 

4.  Swinburne:  Study,  1880,  p 165. 


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29 

Swinburne  was  extremely  fond  of  little  children,  and  his  heart  warmec 
to  the  person  who  felt  this  love  with  him.  "From  Homer’s  day  to 
Hugo’s  there  has  been  no  such  loving  and  faithful  picture  of  a child 
as  Shakespeare  has  given  in  the  tragedy  with  which  the  ?/inter’s  Tale 
opens.  We  find  the  cat  celebrated  in  hie  poems,  as  v;ell  as  little 
children,  and  this  favoritism  of  Swinburne’s  creeps  into  his  criti- 
cism, too.  "He  (Lear’s  Fool)  cleaves  to  his  master  with  the  divine 
instinct  of  fidelity  and  love  which  is  not,  though  it  should  be, 
as  generally  recognized  in  the  actual  nature  of  a cat  as  in  the 
proverbial  nature  of  a dog."^  Nor  does  Swinburne's  love  for  the 
sea  fail  to  find  expression.  "Deep  and  pure  and  strong  and  ador- 
able always  and  terrible  and  pitiless  on  occasion  as  the  sea  is  the 
great  soul  of  the  glorious  hero"  (Othello).  As  Swinburne  maintained! 
a traditionally  reverent  attitude  toward  women,  he  naturally 
dwelt  somewhat  at  length  upon  Shakespeare's  treatment  of  women, 
which  was  in  such  marked  contrast  to  the  attitude  held  by  most 
Elizabethan  dramatists.  "No  poet  of  the  time  but  Shakespeare  and 
Webster  has  shown  so  noble  an  instinct  for  elevating  and  purifying 
the  character  of  women  or  of  men  whom  the  chronicles  they  followed 
with  close  and  meticulous  fidelity  had  presented  as  merely  debased 
and  contemptible  criminals."^  "Shakespeare  has  elsewhere  given  us 
in  ideal  incarnation  the  perfect  mother,  the  perfect  wife,  the  per- 
fect daughter,  the  perfect  mistress  or  the  perfect  maiden;  here  (in 
Antony  and  Cleopatra)  only  once  for  all  he  has  given  us  the  perfect 

1.  Swinburne:  Shakespeare . 1905,  p 52. 

2.  Swinburne:  Study . 1880,  p 181. 

3.  Swinburne:  Three  Plays.  1909,  p 21. 

4.  Swinburne:  Shakespeare . 1905,  p 14. 


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30 

and  the  everlasting  woman. The  critic  closes  his  Study  of  Shake 8~ 
peare . 1880,  with  these  words:-  ”In  Imogen  we  find  half  glorified 
already  the  immortal  godhead  of  womanhood.  I am  therefore  something 
more  than  fain  to  close  my  book  upon  the  name  of  the  woman  best  be- 
loved in  all  the  world  of  song  and  all  the  tide  of  time;  upon  the 
name  of  Shakespeare’s  Imogen."^ 

Nor  can  Swinburne  refrain  from  personalities  of  a sharper  cast 
When  he  is  discussing  a subject  which  has  been  previously  reviewed 
by  German  critics,  a school  which  especially  had  come  under  the  ban 
of  Swinburne’s  disapproval,  he  cannot  pass  by  the  opportunity  of  in- 
dulging in  ironical  remarks  concerning  them.  Witness,  for  example, 
the  interpolation  in  his  critical  work  of  comments  such  as  these:- 
trust  it  will  be  taken  as  no  breach  of  my  past  pledge  to  abstain  from 
all  intrusion  on  the  sacred  ground  of  Gigadibs  and  the  Germans,  if  I 
venture  to  indicate  a touch  inserted  by  Shakespeare  for  no  other  per- 
ceptible or  conceivable  piorpose  than  to  obviate  by  anticipation  the 
indomitable  and  ineradicable  fallacy  of  criticism  which  would  find  th< 
keynote  of  Hamlet’s  character  in  the  quality  of  irresolution."^  "Any 
point  in  the  character  of  Hamlet  unseized  by  the  Germans  yet."^  "A 
German  will  rush  in  with  an  answer  where  an  Englishman  (non  angelus 
sed  Anglus)  will  naturally  fear  to  tread."® 

There  are  plenty  of  "cold-blooded  and  perhaps  more  fortuna-fe 


1.  Swinburne:  Study . 1860,  p 191. 

2.  Ibid,  p 227. 

3.  Ibid,  p 160. 

4.  Ibid,  p 160. 

5.  Ibid,  p 200. 


31 

mortals"  who  fill  out  both  the  credit  and  the  debit  side  of  Shakes- 
peare's ledger,  who  involve  themselves  in  dry  and  meaningless  techni- 
calities and  architectural  points  in  the  framework  of  the  plays,  who 
give  the  whole  subject  strictly  objective  treatment  in  a very  re- 
served manner,  and  who  succeed  in  boring  the  reader  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  his  personal  feeling  toward  the  great  dramatist  suffers  in 
consequence,  but  Swinburne  stands  in  a class  by  himself.  Swinburne’s 
enthusiasm  for  Shakespeare  was  genuine,  sincere,  infectious.  But  it 
must  be  admitted  that  there  are  many  serious  charges  to  be  laid  at 
hie  door  as  a Shakespearean  critic.  We  can  find  no  deep  analysis  of 
characters  or  of  plays.  Simply  to  say  that  Imogen  is  the  very  crown 
and  flower  of  all  her  father's  daughters,  or  that  Othello  is  the 
noblest  man  of  man's  making  may  fittingly  express  the  poet's  predi- 
lections, but  it  is  no  true  criticism.  The  comment  on  Troilus  and 
Cressida.  that  "Alike  in  its  most  palpable  perplexities  and  in  its 
most  patent  splendours,  this  political  and  philosophical  and  poetic 
problem,  this  hybrid  and  himdred-faced  and  hydra-headed  prodigy,  at 
once  defies  and  derides  all  definitive  comment,"^  may  be  accepted  as 
the  ravings  of  an  alliterative  fanatic,  but  it  is  meaningless  as 
criticism.  In  the  following  extracts  from  the  Study  of  1860  we  gain 
nothing  but  an  idea  of  Swinburne's  frantic  admiration  for  the  plays 
to  which  he  alludes:-  "And  now,  before  we  may  enter  the  'flowery 
square*  made  by  the  summer  growth  of  his  four  greatest  works  in  pure 
and  perfect  comedy  'beneath  a broad  and  equal-blowing  wind'  of  all 
happiest  and  most  fragrant  imagination,  we  have  but  one  field  to 
cross,  one  brook  to  ford,  that  hardly  can  be  thought  to  keep  us  out 

1.  Swinburne:  Study . 1880,  p 200. 


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32 

of  Paradise.  In  the  garden-plot  on  whose  wicket  is  inscribed  All  * s 
Well  that  Ends  Well,  we  are  hardly  distajit  from  Eden  itself  'About  a 
young  dove's  flutter  from  a wood'".^  "At  the  entrance  of  the  heaven- 
ly quadrilateral,  or  under  the  rising  dawn  of  the  four  fixed  stars 
which  compose  our  Northern  Cross  among  the  constellations  of  dramatic 
romance  hung  high  in  the  highest  air  of  poetry,  we  may  well  pause  for 
very  dread  of  our  ov/n  delight,  lest  unawares  we  break  into  mere  bab- 
ble of  childish  rapture  and  infantile  thanksgiving  for  such  light 
vouchsafed  even  to  our  ' settentrional  vedovo  sito'  that  even  at  their 
first  dawn  out  of  the  depths  'goder  pareva  il  ciel  di  lar  fiammelle'. 
Beyond  these  again  we  see  a second  group  arising,  the  supreme  starry 
trinity  of  the  Winter's  Tale,  the  Tempest . and  Cvmbeline;  and  beyond 
these  the  divine  darkness  of  everlasting  and  all-maternal  night. 

We  miss  also  any  real  attempt  at  criticism  of  dramatic  form  or  con- 
struction. In  this  connection,  Mr.  Drinkwater  in  his  Estimate . says, 
"There  is  nothing  in  the  essays  to  show  that  form  is  a considerable 
aspect  of  Shakespeare's  art,  while  there  is  everything  to  shov/  that 

he  could  recognize  all  degrees  of  attainment  in  loveliness  of 

verse  with  unerring  instinct."^  A summary  of  the  points  which 
Coleridge  emphasizes  in  his  criticism  of  Shakespeare  as  his  outstand- 
ing characteristics,  will  perhaps  serve  as  well  as  anything  else,  by 
way  of  comparison,  to  show  in  what  respects  Swinburne's  critical  work 
is  lacking.  They  are  as  follows:-  Unity  of  feeling  and  of  character 
which  pervades  every  drama;  expectation  in  preference  to  surprise; 

1.  Swinburne:  Study.  1880,  p 146. 

2.  Ibid,  p 148. 

3.  Drinkwater:  Swinburne..  An  Estimate,  p 181. 


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33 

signal  adherence  to  the  great  law  lOf  nature,  that  all  opposites  tend 
to  attract  and  temper  each  other;  keeping  at  all  times  in  the  high 
road  of  life,  never  inverting  the  order  of  nature  and  propriety;  in- 
dependence of  the  dramatic  interest  on  the  plot;  independence  of  the 
interest  on  the  story  as  the  groundwork  of  the  plot;  interfusion  of 
the  lyrical,  not  only  with  the  dramatic,  but  also  in  and  through  the 
dramatic;  leaving  the  characters  of  the  dramatic  personae  to  be  in- 
ferred by  the  reader;  following  the  main  inarch  of  the  human  affec- 
tions.^ Swinburne's  criticism  is  certainly  not  all-inclusive  in 
dealing  with  all  phases  of  the  subject  as  is  Coleridgeb.  Swinburne 
was  too  impulsive.  His  heart-whole  yielding  of  himself  up  to  the 
stress  of  feeling  of  the  moment  often  leads  him  into  ill-considered 
and  unguarded  flights  of  oratory  and  panegyric,  and  abuse  as  well, 
which  are  far  outside  the  province  of  a critic. 

Stimulating  and  picquing  as  his  criticism  ever  is,  care  must 
be  taken  by  the  reader  that  he  does  not  substitute  Swinburne's 
Shakespeare  for  the  real  Shakespeare.  It  is  through  the  medium  of 
Swinburne's  soul  that  we  see  the  fineness  of  his  master,  the  aestheti<: 
and  spiritual  side  of  his  genius.  However,  if  the  reader  can  realize 
that  all  of  Swinburne's  criticism  is  high-pitched,  and  if  he  is 
blessed  with  the  ability  to  separate  a kernel  of  wheat  from  a bushel 
of  chaff,  from  the  perusal  of  Swinburne's  essays  he  will  turn  to 
Shakespeare  with  a renewed  interest  and  a deeper  appreciation  of  the 
inner  harmonies  of  his  work. 


1.  Coleridge:  Works.  Vol.IV,  1866,  passim,  61-4. 


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34 

CHAPTER  III 
A Study  of  Ben  Jonson 

"If  poets  may  be  divided  into  two  exhaustive  but  not  exclu- 
sive classes  - the  gods  of  harmony  and  creation,  the  giants  of  energy 
and  invention  - the  supremacy  of  Shakespeare  among  the  gods  of 
English  verse  is  not  more  unquestionable  than  the  supremacy  of  Jonson 
among  its  giants."^  The  opening  sentence  of  Swinburne's  Study  of  Ben 
Jonson,  the  first  section  of  which  is  devoted  to  a consideration  of 
his  dramatic  work,  strikes  the  keynote  of  his  criticism  of  Jonson  as 
a playwright.  That  Swinburne  should  rank  Jonson  as  "a  giant  of  en- 
ergy and  invention"  implies  the  distinguishing  mark  of  difference  be- 
tween his  Shakespearean  and  his  Jonsonian  criticisrru  Jenson's 
genius  was  not  inspirational  or  will-o'-the-wisp  in  character,  but 
was  the  result  of  the  combination  of  a wonderful  intellect  with  an 
indomitable  determination  and  a rigid  conception  of  purpose.  The 
sort  of  criticism  applied  to  Shakespeare,  a kind  of  runningpfire  of 
eulogistic  appreciation  of  his  aesthetic  and  spiritual  qualities  to 
the  almost  entire  exclusion  of  analysis  of  character  and  points  of 
technique,  would  manifestly  be  incongruous  here.  Swinburne  must  have 
realized  this,  for  as  far  as  is  possible  for  such  a child  of  emotion 
as  he,  the  style  of  A Study  of  Ben  Jonson  (and  throughout  this  dis- 
cussion, when  mention  is  made  of  this  book,  it  will  be  understood  to 
mean  only  that  part  of  it  with  which  we  are  concerned,  the  section 
dealing  with  his  dramatic  works)  is  restrained  and  sane,  and  more 
fitting  for  the  nature  of  the  man  and  the  works  he  is  reviewing. 


1.  Study  of  Ben  Jonson.  1889,  p 2. 


35 

Swinburne  entertained  a very  real  admiration  for  Ben  Jon son,  but  it 
was  far  from  the  excessive  attitude  of  worship  and  adoration  which  he 
held  toward  the  greatest  of  dramatists.  When  not  blinded  to  exist- 
ing faults  by  over-enthusiastic  devotion,  his  criticism  could  frankly 
acknowledge  and  condemn  the  defects  as  well  as  heartily  praise  the 
merits  of  any  particular  work  dr  author.  Assuredly,  there  are  many 
more  defects  to  be  acknowledged  in  Jonson  than  in  Shakespeare,  but 
just  as  assuredly  the  calmer  feeling  for  Jonson  is  responsible  in 
large  measure  for  the  more  equable  and  balanced  manner  of  treatment 
accorded  him  by  Swinburne.  Not  that  the  Study  of  Ben  Jonson  is  an 
example  of  complete  and  well-rounded  criticism;  it  was  inherently  im- 
possible that  Swinburne  could  ever  achieve  that;  but  the  defects  of 
an  impressionist  and  stylist,  while  still  visible,  are  much  less  in- 
sistently and  persistently  intrusive  than  in  the  essays  on  Shakes- 
peare. 

The  quality  which  above  all  others  in  Jonson  attracts  Swin^- 
burne’s  first  attention,  is  the  quality  of  conscience  and  laborious 
effort,  completely  lacking  in  inspiration  or  impulse.  "Conscience  is 
his  first  and  last  consideration:  the  conscience  of  power  which  un- 
doubtedly made  him  arrogant  and  exacting  made  him  even  more  severe  in 
self-exaction,  more  resolute  in  self-discipline,  more  inexorable  in 
self-devotion  to  the  elected  labor  of  his  life."^  Jonson  had  "a 
stern  and  austere  devotion  to  the  principle  which  prohibits  all  ex- 
uberance of  expression,  and  immolates  on  the  alter  of  accuracy  all 
eloquence,  all  passion,  and  all  inspiration  incompatible  with  direct 
and  prosaic  reproduction  of  probable  or  plausible  dialogue."^  "The 

1.  Study  of  Jonson.  1889,  p 7. 

2,  Study  of  Jonson.  p 12. 


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36 

famous  men  whose  names  may  most  naturally  and  most  rationally  be 
coupled  with  the  more  illustrious  name  of  Ben  Joiison  came  short  of 
the  triumph  which  might  have  been  theirs  in  consequence  of  their 

worst  faults  or  defects  because  they  preferred  self-interest  in 

the  one  case  and  self-indulgence  in  the  other  to  the  noble  toil  and 
the  noble  pleasure  of  doing  their  best  for  their  art’s  sake  and  their 
duty’s,  to  the  ultimate  satisfaction  of  their  conscience."^  "He  was 
careful  and  troubled  about  many  things  absolutely  superfluous  and 
supererogatory;  matters  of  no  value  or  concern  whatever  for  the  pur- 
pose or  the  import  of  a dramatic  poem. "There  is  nothing  accidental 
in  the  work  of  Ben  Jonson:  no  casual  inspiration,  no  fortuitous  im- 
pulse, ever  guides  or  misguides  his  genius  aright  or  astray. "3 

This  conscientious  restraint  and  laborious  effort  is  but  too 
plainly  evidenced  in  his  characterization.  Jonson 's  men  and  women 
are  rarely  more  to  us  than  clearly-defined  puppets  with  one  pre- 
dominant feature  in  their  make-up,  whose  actions  are  dependent  upon 
the  manipulation  of  the  strings  in  the  hands  of  their  maker.  As 
Coleridge  has  said,  Jonson’ s characters  are,  almost  entirely,  "either 
a man  with  a huge  wen,  having  a circulation  of  its  own,  and  which  we 
might  conceive  amputated,  and  the  patient  thereby  losing  all  his 
character:  or  they  are  mere  wens  themselves,  instead  of  men  - wens 
personified,  or  with  eyes,  nose,  and  mouth  out  out;  mandrake  fashion." 
The  characters  do  not  evolve  or  develop;  the  different  facets  of  theii 
being  are  shown  to  us  by  an  accumulation  of  one  heap  of  details  upon 


1.  Study  of  Jonson.  p 6. 

3.  Ibid,  p 27, 

3.  Ibid,  1899,  p 9. 

4.  Coleridge:  Works.  Vol.IV,  ed  Shedd,  1868,  p 192. 


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37 

another,  often  exceedingly  ingenious  in  themselves,  but  the  evidences 
of  an  inferior  method  of  characterization.  ”The  author  has  fallen 
into  the  excusable  but  nevertheless  unpardonable  error  of  the  too 

studious  and  industrious  Martha  the  one  thing  needful,  the  very 

condition  of  poetic  life  and  dramatic  interest,  he  utterly  and  per- 
sistently overlooked.  (In  speaking  of  Tiberius  in  Sejanus)  no 
praise,  - of  the  sort  which  is  due  to  such  labors,  - can  be  too  high 
for  the  strenuous  and  fervid  conscience  which  inspires  every  line  of 
the  laborious  delineation:  the  recorded  words  of  the  tyrant  are 
wrought  into  the  text,  his  traditional  characteristics  are  welded 
into  the  action,  with  a patient  and  earnest  fidelity  which  demands 
applause  no  less  than  recognition:  but  when  we  turn  from  this  elabo- 
rate statue  - from  this  exquisitely  articulated  skeleton  - to  the 
living  figure  of  Octavius  or  of  Antony,  we  feel  and  understand  more 
than  ever  that  Shakespeare  'hath  chosen  the  good  part,  which  shall 
not  be  taken  away  from  him'."^  This  "good  part,"  sympathy  with  his 
characters  and  ability  to  make  them  real  flesh  and  blood  creatures, 
pulsating  with  life,  convincing  us  that  just  so  it  must  have  been,  anc 
not  otherwise  it  could  have  been,  was  beyond  the  reach  of  Jonson. 
"Cataline  is  so  mere  a monster  of  ravenous  malignity  and  irrational 
atrocity  that  he  simply  impresses  us  as  an  irresponsible  though  crimi- 
nal lunatic:  and  there  is  something  so  preposterous,  so  abnormal,  in 
the  conduct  and  language  of  all  concerned  in  his  conspiracy,  that 
nothing  attributed  to  them  seems  either  rationally  credible  or  logi- 
cally incredible."^  "If  the  play  (Tale  of  a Tub)  be  a failure,  it  is 
through  the  writer's  want  of  any  real  sympathy  with  his  characters, 

1.  Study  of  Jonson.  1889,  pp  27-8. 

2.  Ibid,  p 57, 


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38 

any  hearty  relish  of  hie  subject."^  "It  is  difficult  to  believe  that 
Jonson  can  have  believed  with  some  half-s3rmpathetio  or  half-sardonic 
belief,  in  all  the  leading  figures  of  his  invention."^  "There  is 
lack  of  any  cordial  interest  in  the  men  and  women  represented  on  the 
stage.  The  whole  interest  is  concentrated  on  the  intellectual  com- 
position and  the  intellectual  development  of  the  characters  and  the 
scheme.  Love  and  hatred,  sympathy  and  antipathy,  are  superseded  and 
supplanted  by  pure  scientific  curiosity. The  genius  of  Ben  Jonson 
is  distinguished  from  that  of  "the  very  greatest  imaginative  humor- 
ists - Aristophanes  or  Rabelais,  Shakespeare  or  Sterne,  Vanbrugh  or 
Dickens,  Congreve  or  Thackeray"  by  this  quality.  "Each  of  these  was 
evidently  capable  of  falling  in  love  with  his  own  fancy  - of  rejoic- 
ing in  his  own  imaginative  humour  as  a swimmer  in  the  waves  he  plays 
with.  There  is  the  life-blood  of  eternal  life  which  can  only  be  in- 
fused by  the  sirmpathetic  faith  of  the  creator  in  his  creature  - the 
breath  which  animates  every  word,  even  if  the  word  be  not  the  very 
best  word  that  might  have  been  chosen,  with  the  vital  pulse  of  infal- 
lible imagination."^  Nevertheless,  there  are  one  or  two  times  when 
Jonson  outdoes  himself  in  the  realm  of  character,  when  he  seems  to 
have  caught  for  a little  while  a glimpse  of  the  higher  gift  of  char- 
acterization. "One  figure,  indeed,  among  all  the  multitude  of 
Jonson *8  invention,  is  so  magnificent  in  the  spiritual  stature  of  his 
wickedness,  in  the  still  dilating  verge  and  expanding  proportion  of 
his  energies,  that  admiration  in  this  single  case  may  possibly  if  not 

1.  Study  of  Jonson.  1889,  p 85. 

3,  Study  of  Jonson.  1889,  p 39. 

3.  Ibid,  p 29. 

4.  Ibid,  p 39. 


vm 


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‘J...  '■"•'"•^V  '’sg  ::'.  [^r,«T.  is 

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I'  8-  •:© '.  '^*fe  a tX:  \j/ #4>C*W(#  1*^ ' ■ i; 'BaTJ3  i,»votT;,j 

'“■’''''  J ^ ’ ' ■■‘•i  .'  j»  ' . 4^.* 


/ . • 7n  X ‘ '■  V “^.  ' *■<»«».  4^ 


-T-y-n^jia  0'tr.f  irv<^'i;:^a^xxa^^  'to 

■'  Kc4X%T  «,«r-' ».  V r,:l  •ai^.v  Jl^ei . 4 .*4  !^p^§  Xifv  «i!  -kS 

•r''’’^'  r^V  f?"c  >/it?X4v  9iXi. , i.>^€  5'9''  V> ■ 

|^;'3?f-  s,  ' ''  ' „.  " ' ; ' *,  " ,»>:,  ' .'^  ‘^'>'..i!Sf--<^' 'V  ',  ;.  --■  ; i'M? 

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f -(V  '’^’  ’ j'  ' ■'>■  ■*v\  ' ''M  ' » ■ .'J  ’■« 

'Jt^;  ''fiCitH  J'-fi'  i«R«<^t&X! 

>/'  .a^'  ■.'.'  '‘‘' V ""■'  . ■ -»7  , . -■ : ' c ^ ‘T;  ^;7v■“  . ■'Sfo; 


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i': 


> .>  . ■ y>.  ' V .W  “ 


vi  .ijr ■ i ' .;  -^jjkJSijji^ 


*^r’«<.'j*'n?".'*ipr.i»*‘<w  ■■^i)ji»^**!p.»j;_ii»ifaj  ^ 


■•  li* 


-'i- 


' '.‘kl 


39 

probably  overflow  into  something  of  intellectual  if  not  moral  sympa- 
thy. The  genius  and  the  courage  of  Volpone,  hie  sublimity  of  cynic 
scorn  and  hie  intensity  of  contemptuous  enjoyment  - his  limitless 
capacity  for  pleasure  and  his  dauntless  contemplation  of  his  crimes,  - 
make  of  this  superb  sinner  a figure  which  we  can  hardly  realize  with- 
out some  sense  of  in^^erious  fascination."^  "I  admire  as  a master- 
stroke of  character  the  haughty  audacity  of  caprice  which  produces  or 

evolves  his  ruin  (Volpone ’s)  out  of  his  own  hardihood  and  insolence 

2 

of  exulting  and  daring  enjoyment."  "Nor  is  it  possible  to  resist  a 

certain  sense  of  immoral  sympathy  and  humorous  congratulation  

when  Face  dismisses  Surly  with  a promise  td  bring  him  word  to  his 
lodging  if  he  can  hear  of  ‘that  Face*  whom  Surly  has  sworn  to  mark 
for  his  if  ever  he  meets  him.  From  the  date  of  Plautus  to  the  date 
of  Sheridan  it  would  surely  be  difficult  to  find  in  any  comedy  a 
touch  of  glorious  impudence  which  might  reasonably  be  set  against 
this."^ 

Some  of  Jonson's  characters  furnish  Swinburne  an  opportunity 
of  making  a comparison  of  Jonson  with  other  dramatists.  "The  treat- 
ment of  character  (in  Cat aline)  is  hardly  more  serious  as  a study  of 
humanity  than  Seneca's,  though  the  style  of  writing  is  immeasurably 
better  than  that  of  the  ranting  tragedian. "Moliere  himself  has 

no  character  more  exquisitely  successful  in  presentation  

than  the  immortal  and  inimitable  Bobadil."^  "As  to  the  chief 

l'*  Study  of  Jonson.  1889,  p 31. 

2.  Ibid,  p 42. 

3.  Ibid,  p 38. 

4.  Ibid,  p 57. 

5.  Ibid,  p 14. 


.-M»4  - •» 


^ -V,  . 3-^  X^i:,  t'vi  C ,5,,; 


^'ii 


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40 

character,  (in  The  Silent  Woman)  he  is  as  superior  to  the 

malade  Imaginaire,  or  to  any  of  the  Sganarelles  of  Moliere,  as  is 
Moliere  himself  to  Jonson  in  lightness  of  spontaneous  movement  and 
easy  grace  of  inspiration,"^  Other  interesting  comparisons,  though 
not  connected  with  characterization,  may  more  fittingly  be  given  at 
this  point  than  later.  "A  play  of  this  kind  (The  Silent  Woman)  must 
Inevitably  challenge  a comparison,  in  the  judgment  of  modern  readers, 
between  its  author  and  Moliere;  and  Jonson  can  hardly,  on  the  whole, 

sustain  that  most  perilous  comparison.  The  Nemesis  of  the 

satirist  is  upon  him:  he  cannot  be  happy  in  his  work  without  some 
undertone  of  sarcasm,  some  afterthought  of  allusion,  aimed  at  matter £ 
which  Moliere  would  have  reserved  for  a slighter  style  of  satire, 
and  which  Shakespeare  would  scarcely  have  condescended  to  recognize 
as  possible  objects  of  even  momentary  attention."^  "Shakespeare 
himself  stands  no  higher  above  Milton  and  Shelley  than  Jonson  above 
Dryden  and  Byron. "Among  the  very  few  poets  who  could  sustain  a 
comparison  with  Catullus  no  man  capable  of  learning  the  merest  rudi- 
ments of  poetry  will  affirm  that  Ben  Jonson  can  be  ranked. "In 
the  year  1620  the  comic  genius  of  Jonson  shone  out  once  more  in  all 
the  splendour  of  its  strength.  News  from  the  New  World  Discovered  ir 
the  Moon  is  worthy  of  a prose  Aristophanes:  in  other  words,  it  is  a 
satire  such  as  Aristophanes  might  have  written  if  that  greater  poet 
had  ever  condescended  to  write  prose," 

1.  Study  of  Jonson.  1889,  p 53. 

2.  Ibid,  p 51. 

3.  Ibid,  p 2. 

4.  Ibid,  p 47. 

5.  Ibid,  p 70. 


1 S ' s ' 


I lil 


» 


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: osii 


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.'••  x^Ta  i*  "ri 


41 


Despite  the  fact  that  the  majority  of  the  comparisons  which 
Swinburne  makes  between  Jenson  and  other  poets  and  dramatists  tends 
to  give  him  second  or  third  place,  there  are  some  respects  in  which 
the  critic  holds  that  Jonson's  work  entitles  him  to  very  high  praise 
and  a rank  equal  with  that  of  the  greatest  play^vrights,  or  even,  in 
consideration  of  hie  genius  for  construction  and  invention,  above 
all  others,  Swinburne  regards  The  Alchemist  and  Oedipus  Tvrannus  as 

4 

the  "greatest  of  tragic  and  the  greatest  of  comic  triumphs  in  con- 
struction ever  accomplished  by  the  most  consummate  and  the  most  con- 
scientious among  ancient  and  modern  artists."^  They  are  blameless  ir 
their  "ingenuity  of  composition  and  absolute  impeccability  of  de- 
sign."^ "I  know  not  where  to  find  a third  instance  of  catastrophe 
comparable  with  that  of  either  The  Fox  or  The  Alchemist  in  the  whole 
range  of  the  highest  comedy;  whether  for  completeness,  for  propriety, 
for  interest,  for  ingenious  felicity  of  event  or  for  perfect  com- 
bination and  exposition  of  all  the  leading  characters  at  once  in  su- 
preme simplicity,  unity,  and  fullness  of  culminating  effect."^  "The 
stedfast  and  imperturbable  skill  of  hand  which  has  woven  so  many 
threads  of  incident,  so  many  shades  of  character,  so  many  changes  of 
intrigue,  into  so  perfect  and  superb  a pattern  of  incomparable  art 
as  dazzles  and  delights  the  reader  of  The  Alchemist  is  unquestionably 
unio^ue  - above  con^arlson  with  euiy  later  or  earlier  example  of  kin- 
dred genius  in  the  whole  range  of  comedy,  if  not  in  the  whole  world 
of  fiction.  It  is  the  most  perfect  model  of  imaginative  realism  and 

4 

satiriheLl  comedy  the  world  has  ever  seen." 

1,  Study  of  Jonson,  1889,  p 39. 

2,  Ibid,  p 40. 

3,  Ibid,  p 42. 

4,  Ibid,  p 37. 


^ h\» 


r-v 

';  vj»>:<^  ■ v^-Wi  f»trtr  v*-f' '.  <r4  M , 4i 

^ ' 4'  ’ ' *'  f ^ ■<• 

-f  , ^ ■ ,, .'  '.  '1,  .'^  '■•■^r. 


^/{o'td"*  Ji*l  -t'jEMr  4^ 

■ , ' ..  ^ , 

Difc’i^sg  figXa  v/<c*  '3^  wi<r  iw  a ’aoajii^Ui  -Stflii?  eSfer 

r*  . ' ■■  ■■  ■ ■ * < .^ 

4i  »f.v%  yb  . 

'\Ji ■ ■>, ' ■i'''-'^^  '?■ 

’ ^ ,1  ^ »^'  ^ ‘7  ■' 

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^ J-Aob,  ;^s  ■>.-.?  vi^Aukty^^sJO  ru<vp 

i ' " { * ' ■ '*' 

^ Xt  ^ c r..«P  ‘ 


^ <r  ' ■ ,- 

<|fco|bo  abi^«^3r:i‘a» 

vi  "*V  ■ ’ ' 

* ^ 'rtti  ^ 


L $/lqoirrf7fMT/r  "j-.'.ij^a  t-it’Af  )oa 

xZod^  nt  X- <ty 'Id. 


V 


ac 


K"^  ' 


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“L^qfr  :?&^:?5  vq  x<>.l -ag  tO'  to'j 

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•AXiAir  ttlod^r  <»^:t.  Hi  ^Ofs  *kt  ^ylidAoo  etf-Sijj 

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.1-  ,>  . 


'^■  '*^'*  ■ ■x«viJ 'iwiiit  yAflboo  X«ijt4 

‘ . i ' ^ V . "i  - 


'...s‘../!A..  >»">!(,  a-Pr  .■;  MHBBl^Vr^  \ '-9'-  ^-it^ 


42 

Swinburne  praises  Jenson  for  the  "power  of  his  verse  and  the 
purity  of  his  English"^  and  for  the  forcefulness  of  his  satire  when 
it  does  not  approach  too  nearly  the  borderline  of  intolerance  and 
snarling.  "The  fervour  and  intensity  of  the  verse  which  expresses 
his  loftier  mood  of  intolerant  indignation,  the  studious  and  implar- 
cable  versatility  of  scorn  which  animates  the  expression  of  his  dis- 
gust at  the  viler  or  crueller  examples  of  social  villainy  then  open 
to  his  contemptuous  or  furious  observation,  though  they  certainly 
can  not  suffice  to  make  a play,  suffice  to  make  a living  and  in^er- 
ishable  work  of  dramatic  satire  which  passes  so  rapidly  from  one 
phase  to  another  of  folly,  fraud  or  vice."'^  The  general  abstinence 
of  Jonson  from  vulgarity  for  its  own  sake  is  also  commended  by 
Swinburne.  "Not  only  was  the  genius  of  Jonson  too  great,  but  hie 
character  was  too  radically  noble  for  a realist  or  naturalist  of  the 
meaner  sort.  It  is  only  in  the  minor  parts  of  his  gigantic  work, 
only  in  its  insignificant  or  superfluous  Components  or  details,  that 
we  find  a tedious  insistence  on  wearisome  or  offensive  topics  of  in- 
artistic satire  or  ineffectual  display.  Nor  is  it  upon  the  ignoble 
sides  of  character  that  this  great  satiric  dramatist  prefers  to  con- 
centrate his  attention.  As  even  in  the  most  terrible  masterpieces 
of  Balzac,  it  is  not  the  wickedness  of  the  vicious  or  criminal  agents 
it  is  their  energy  of  intellect,  their  dauntless  versatility  of  dar- 
ing, their  invincible  fertility  of  resource,  for  which  our  interest 
is  claimed  or  by  which  our  admiration  is  aroused.  In  Face  as  in  Sub- 
tle, in  Volpone  as  in  Mo sea,  the  qualities  which  delight  us  are  vir- 
tues misapplied;  it  is  not  their  cunning,  their  avarice,  or  their 
lust,  it  is  their  courage,  their  genius,  their  wit,  in  which  we  take 

1.  Study  of  Jonson.  1889,  p 28. 

2.  Ibid,  p 16. 


V V 


,,  :’:v-7  I.  '..  '.:•  . ■"  • . 'lo, »■■»•■/.■.  .:'•»<  '»&.fi.u.l''''ri 

* '1, 

U**^  • -■  J '’  ■'  t*  ’ ' ''.I  J ' it. 

ciut.v.  v r'>  .I'.  oo  'lev  iv  ' '■  ' > ; Jt-.: 

r I*  ^ **  '* 


: j.\uq 


•;  ■ , ..  Tift  r »=.n,t 

I 


^ ..rcr^ 

• ■■ 

V ^ ',  .^:.,iv  ,)-:'>i:yr  ‘ . +,t  i.  ti.\. 

• ' L-r  I|v  :*.• ; •:•■.’»  ':  •■  •'  : r-  xWfiC?uv>'. 


: ♦ o 


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,'..'  .'  ■ . -J3  ■'. 

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y ' .jr:<..'.r>j-‘  • c-  rt  z 

is  I t: /■.r  . ■ ■ • - '.: , .jyj-  a .v.  ilvy '.. 


! ' W-. : J/’,..'"'.  ^'o‘r-.r  4'  ::  .--i  itof}  .130 


•;>  't; 


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, ; <5  T'  ■'  ^ •■*  ‘S  ■ '■  •^*'  .V  “.I  i 'J  T ft 


.'*■  V 


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43 


no 'ignoble  or  irrational  pleasure."^  Joneon’e  marvellous  learning 
and  his  great  scholarship  are  also  qualities  appreciated  by  Swin- 
burne. 

Much  as  the  critic  finds  to  admire  in  Jonson,  - his  energy, 
his  ingenuity  of  invention,  his  singleness  of  purpose,  his  conscien- 
tious expenditure  of  great  labor  and  effort,  the  forcefulness  of  his 
characterizations,  the  purity  of  hie  English,  the  moral  tone  which 
is  implied  if  not  expressed,  his  great  skill  in  construction  and  com- 
position, his  wonderful  learning  and  scholarship,  - there  are  many 
qualities  which  by  their  presence  or  absence  call  forth  varying  de- 
grees of  regTet,  disapproval,  or  indignation  from  Swinburne.  Men- 
tion has  been  made  in  a previous  connection  of  two  of  the  chief  of 
these  defects,  lack  of  any  real  sympathy  with  his  characters  and  a 
too  conscientious  devotion  to  a rigid  principle  which  precluded 
everything  of  fancy  or  impulse.  His  characterization  is  too  often 
"a  study,  not  of  humanity,  but  of  humours. His  very  genius  for 
invention  is  at  times  a doubtful  blessing.  "The  prodigality  of 
elaboration  lavished  on  such  a multitude  of  subordinate  characters, 
at  the  expense  of  all  continuous  Interest  and  to  the  sacrifice  of 
all  dramatic  harmony,  may  tempt  the  reader  to  apostrophize  the  poet 
in  his  own  words: 

*You  are  so  covetous  still  to  embrace 
More  than  you  can,  that  you  lose  all*. " 

His  serious  verse  is  too  often  defaced  "with  grotesque  if  not  gross 
deformity  of  detail."^  "The  simple  subject  of  the  play  (Tale  of  a 

1.  Study  of  Jonson.  1889,  pp  44-5. 

2.  Ibid,  p 57. 

3.  Ibid,  p 66. 

4.  Ibid,  p 49. 


r- A t.r-fiT.9l  }»..'■':  ifv 


^ V . • , > ^ . 1.^  \ 


..vc  vL  ;•  .:_J..^  . 


-si;. 


( 


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■■■■:.  '■  /.!'  ■ -.Klf'zr:  ;..  1.  ;-..c \ 


jrq-':'  :;'>:■  -{:i:  ■ ^ 'izX's:^i  ' •■0'.'3  u' 

;;o^.:;tv'  vt: 


, . ■ T ■■ 

■■;,,,v  Vf '^’r: 

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\o  f.  j.: . . . ,.•• 

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.,Ti'.Sj|5V'  i' 

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44 

Tub)  and  the  homely  motive  of  the  action  are  overlaid  and  overloaded 
by  the  multiplicity  of  minor  characters  and  episodical  superflui- 
ties."^ Restrained  and  careful  in  other  respects,  the  great  drama- 
tist was  prone  to  give  too  free  a rein  to  his  satiric  vein.  "Scorn 
and  indignation  are  but  too  often  the  motives  or  the  mainsprings  of 
his  comic  art;  and  when  dramatic  poetry  can  exist  on  the  sterile  and 
fiery  diet  of  scorn  and  indignation,  we  may  hope  to  find  life  sus- 

2 

tained  in  happiness  and  health  on  a diet  of  aperients  and  emetics." 
"The  sneer  of  the  superior  person  - Dauphine  or  Clerimont  - is  always 
ready  to  pass  into  a snarl;  there  is  something  in  this  great  classic 

3 

writer  of  the  bull-baiting  or  beat-baiting  brutality  of  his  age." 

As  a playwright,  Swinburne  holds  Jonson  responsible  for  various  dra- 
matic errors  or  "magnificent  mistakes."  In  Every  Man  Out  of  His 
Humour  a speculator,  who  has  become  rich  through  the  sufferings  of 
the  poor,  hangs  himself  in  consequence  of  an  incident  which  benefits 
his  victims.  The  peasants  cut  down  the  man  whom  they  find  swinging 
in  mid-air  in  time  to  save  his  life,  but  as  they  recognize  him  as 
their  persecutor,  break  forth  into  loudly  expressed  regrets  for  their 
act  of  mercy,  whereupon  the  speculator  at  once  becomes  a beneficent 
and  penitent  philanthropist.  Swinburne  quotes  this  conversion  of 
character  as  an  instance  of  Jonson' s "capacity  for  dramatic  error  - 
for  the  sacrifice  at  once  of  comic  art  and  of  common  sense  on  the 
alter  of  moral  or  satirical  purpose."^  Of  Sejanus  the  critic  says, 
"That  the  subject  is  one  absolutely  devoid  of  all  but  historical  and 

1.  Study  of  Jonson.  1889,  p 84. 

2.  Ibid,  p 39, 

3.  Ibid,  p 51. 

4.  Ibid,  p 19. 


f)  - 


' >5  ' 1 

i fi 


'-*  . ' »w'Vl  .,  ni*V* 


>0 


'/  n 


v-J„ 


Xrt_  _ fi 


ori,"-  ( . :.;Trr  iMMt'  : 


45 


literary  interest  - that  not  one  of  these  scenes  can  excite  for  one 
instant  the  least  touch,  the  least  phantom,  the  least  shadow  of  pity 
or  terror  - would  apparently  have  seemed  to  its  author  no  argument 
against  its  claim  to  greatness  as  a tragic  poem."^  But  Cynthia's 
Revels,  that  "voluminous  abortion  of  deliberate  intelligence  and 
conscientious  culture",  is  quite  the  worst.  "The  intolerable  elabo- 
ration of  pretentious  dullness  and  ostentatious  ineptitude  for  which 
the  author  claims  not  merely  the  tolerance  or  the  condonation  which 
gratitude  or  charity  might  accord  to  the  misuse  or  abuse  of  genius, 
but  the  acclamation  due  to  its  exercise  and  the  applause  denianded  by 
its  triumph,  - the  heavy-headed  perversity  which  ignores  all  the  du- 
ties and  reclaims  all  the  privileges  of  a dramatic  poet,-  the  Cyclo- 
pean ponderosity  of  perseverance  which  hammers  through  scene  after 
scene  at  the  task  of  ridicule  by  anatomy  of  tedious  and  preposter- 
ous futilities  - all  these  too  conscientious  outrages  make  us  wonder 
that  we  have  no  record  of  a retort  from  the  exhausted  audience  - if 
haply  there  were  any  auditors  left  - to  the  dogged  defiance  of  the 
epilogue. 

'By  God  'tis  good,  and  if  you  like  't  you  may, 

o 

- By  God  'tie  bad,  and  worse  than  tongue  can  say'."® 

Of  Jonson  as  a poet  Swinburne  has  not  much  to  say,  except  that  the 
lyrical  quality,  in  all  but  one  or  two  instances,  seemed  to  be  utter- 
ly wanting.  "More  than  justice  has  been  done  to  him  as  a lyric 

poet.  There  is  no  surer  test  of  the  born  lyric  poet  than  the 

presence  or  absence  of  an  instinctive  sense  which  assured  him  when 
and  how  and  where  to  use  or  to  abstain  from  inversion.  And  in  Jonsoi 

1.  Study  of  Jonson.  1889,  p 31. 

3.  Ibid,  p 20. 


^ ,-wm 

'i4'v'»wiw3^.‘:fe^ i 

5R^TtCi>  '7>'^  V .'i«5-‘(:£  £"v  ■ >'  J JLA;»<  < flX  :f  ^^.  •■  !'«^  ’' 

..-  fj  ^ • > . • i,-»...  ‘ /■'^■'^  f‘  dfrw';  <T 

^2  i,if  oC^jl^tv  ^ .3jj  i‘ 

, ■■.■■' f’*'.  ■ , *^  ' fi. " * '*  ' j’’^'  ’'  ’ '■ 

'■  : ^ . ' ■ ' 'y '*  ' ' 

X . v.'i'jrofr  ^TSj,  Ajt- 

jV  ■ . ,•  'kr.  ■•  ^ -,  , ^ ^ '2  ‘ ,‘ 

ftipin.  J.u>^^-::^^:i£i.'!0,f^  .u«  id  •. 

^ ' ‘ ',%i,  V'  ■ ^.  ,,^r%,-.  •;. 

\ -'A'  ’vr  '^'^ 

Ovir./.'rfry.fc  ^iA  :f*  Hfi^ 


I 


I 


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,f’. 


•p  O-  **  / ’Wfe''-''  >W*’^ 

L*-i?  ■JjT-'^  iloisv  - i' *ki'l 

.-  ^ ■ ■■  :■•  ■ . , ,■  ^ , 

\->  ' . ‘ ■ --  i *'  ' \ •■■  ' \ • ' ' , 

L'  ■ ' '-  I'-;.  *■  ••?*  f I ‘iL‘*<'V-'  ' .«'  ' I 

'i'J  Ttft©0‘V*Uj 


■>/** 


v:^  ^r*  ■ . u 1 . <) .:  '4 ; :V sX  ’*  liO 

' '-.‘.v  ix. 


■ ■ ’.  s ,'s  ' •'.:-i'''  . . . ^^s4j 

liO  '-.  c ^ vt.  .^i•J^i^  -i  i.'  |5  - a^^^  t /X  ri wt>' 


vjr.vUV.' X^ts'.ieo:" 


‘l0.  Wonet/'HP:' 


- ; ■ ■-  *.'■»  i,"# ‘^-s  ..Swi'l 

?Wioi  A % j*  -jLU  ^ 

' ' ' ' • ‘ r . ' ;kBlr.. 


L t 


' - ' *S  -‘ji 


i?#  It''  i 'V  ■'  ' 

i;;>y  . ,--v 


'f  • .-  _ i.  Jl  I '''  '^'  '•Cl''’ ■^'2}*  ■ 'v  ' ''  ' '^'  ‘ '••  '-^' 

. • ' ' ' • • ' {■' ‘^-‘ ,'■"<?■  ■ '1-  ^ 

j QfrtA  ’^  0lt^  a^'t' 


' ^ ■ 

t.-.y  'jt^'A.i-  o^ttl  ■' ^ •' -?4v^rWiji 

[•  - ' ' a ■■  ^'.  *■'••  wi.  H ‘.'t'i'j'.'Xi  A ' 

'.JW- 


46 


it  is  utterly  wanting."^  "The  flowers  of  his  growing  have  every 

quality  but  one  which  belongs  to  the  rarest  and  finest  among  flowers; 

they  have  colour,  form,  variety,  fertility,  vigor;  the  only  thing 

they  want  is  fragrance.  That  singing  power  which  answers  in  verse 

to  the  odour  of  a blossom,  to  the  colouring  of  a picture,  to  the 

2 

flavor  of  a fruit,"  was  for  the  most  part  lacking. 

Not  as  many  of  Swinburne *s  personal  preferences  or  antipathiee 
appear  in  the  Study  of  Ben  Jonson  as  are  forced  upon  the  reader’s 
attention  in  the  criticism  of  Shakespeare,  nor  is  the  general  tone 
of  his  style  as  bombastic  and  violent,  A few  times,  as  when  speak- 
ing of  Volpone  and  The  Alchemist,  or  Seianus  and  Cynthia’s  Revels, 
the  fascination  which  language  for  its  own  sake  held  for  him  and  the 
pleasure  he  found  in  expressing  radical  opinions  in  hyperbolic  terms 
shows  itself  in  almost  the  old  form.  References  to  interests  or 
prejudices  outside  the  range  of  this  particular  study  are  very  rate. 
Practically  the  only  unnecessary  and  extraneous  ironical  thrust  oc- 
curs in  his  discussion  of  the  character  of  Rabbi  Busy.  "In  that 
absolute  and  complete  incarnation  of  Puritanism  full  justice  is  done 
to  the  merits  of  the  barbarian  sect  from  Whose  inherited  and  infec- 
tious tyranny  this  nation  is  as  yet  but  imperfectly  delivered.  

H3rpocrisy  streaked  with  sincerity,  greed  with  a cross  of  earnestness 
and  craft  with  a dash  of  fortitude  combine  to  make  of  the  Rabbi  at 
once  the  funniest,  the  fairest,  and  the  faithfullest  study  ever 

3 

taken  of  a less  despicable  than  detestable  type  of  fanatic." 

In  general,  then,  we  may  say  that  though  the  Study  of  Ben 

1.  Study  of  Jonson.  1889,  pp  68-9. 

3.  Ibid,  p 4. 

3.  Ibid,  p 44, 


‘Ti: 

'H  i.wjwi^H^^B,  W ' 


i^if^ 


H A — . 


•’  '’•  '■  wfgR"--  ’■•  ••  '■'  \:  }> ..  •■ ' . ■ ' SI ..  .*"•  r 

'■  ■«'t;t#vtor,®'ijSJf|!  ..v.itvV’r, fit'  _‘  ‘ 


- 1 a:v 


^ ' - . - ’i'^'  . *■  . i . . ..  i * ■ i ,■''’  ., 


**.S»»X'V  »Uf]5'‘*i- 


^ ft , . .-  xj  *<'  1^0, 1*1:  CC?  ft4f 

rihrrf'  V^.Ji  fo 's;jfTWoXi>!V'*^-^  0-3’  id'dilb  ocyv.Qif  d 

-■,'  ' ..  ■■  ■*’''■  * 7 ' ^’'7  -i 

*^v2Xv^C  w- : q4pir' 

‘J  'V,  ■' 

. 't  ■ ’ ' ' ')  , f?  '^■' 

‘ :.>'(!'  ‘.  'ij 


a ' .-.'  !•*  •:  * 


•r* 


’nvi‘ 


, , . ■ .v'  ^ ?E  ^ '■•v  "•  I 

, ,.f  ^Jm4s^JAJL41 

^ I .^i,r  i.ii«‘.^ffid  '*-''**  r faif  r-a  9j:‘t  •sol 

^ ' i^  ’/  ‘ i ‘ 

.i,  t:'  'vcf*:fV. -c  XJk>.e/aiX  j^Sl' 


, lii,t,.,'i-*yMfev*-’X  lit  u4c^>'?©>6K  (^:cir  rt  f.s^oa'tc 

!,  :•  . ,^,  ,,,\  ■ '.  ....,.*  ^ ’■  f}} 


’( . 


-c  X -.*>■?, i a '7?  t'rxe  V 


.♦  . 


wr 


>4  1 


' '*.. ■ ' , ■'«"*'  ’it  .><^  ^ 


y< ' 


■ 1 ' ■ ■ - m; 

-'-?iv*^*  Zl  ^l^.'*^  ..1.' ItO  fTciJ43yX*pr.a,altX'^*'>t?j  o{Jt^^ff4B>^. 

- " / z.zif  7^.^l'rff({rr.t  :^|ja  .“io  tcfl^fon^-^V/O^t 

I ■ ‘ ' -7  '-‘t  . !'  '7,  ' 


f-  i 


^ I ’:i<r:  ^U070  A 


■ ;!! 


l46  XcfcXjttJ?  viJ#''to 


.bl'.A.  j ■ . = ’ ■ ' .'  : .d.  •’ ■ •'  A ..*  ‘f  / ,.j  ./»;*.  *..7  7/:'-  / Vi 


47 


Jonson  shows  clearly  in  style,  in  method  and  in  content  that  it  is 
the  work  of  an  impressionistic  critic,  it  nevertheless  is  free  from 
the  more  glaring  defects  of  the  Shakespearean  criticism.  There  are 
still  many  points  of  interest  to  Dryden,  Coleridge,  Ward,  Shelling, 
and  other  critics  which  do  not  engage  the  attention  of  Swinburne 
sufficiently  to  be  included  in  his  criticism,  such  as  Jenson's  "in- 
vading authors  like  a monarch®,^  his  observance  of  the  \inities,  his 
reproduction  of  the  life  and  manners  of  the  times,  especially  in 
London,  the  absence  from  his  plays  of  the  love  element,  and  small 
points  of  dramatic  technique  and  stage  device.  But  this  work  on  the 
whole  shows  taste  and  judgment  and  a fine  penetrative  insight,  and 
offends  very  rarely  by  extravagance  or  violence.  Though  the  criti- 
cism is  keyed  to  a high  pitch,  as  we  must  always  expect  in  Swinburne, 
there  is  little  more  of  deserved  praise  than  of  deserved  cens\ire. 

The  Study  of  Ben  Jonson  is  one  of  the  most  restrained,  sane,  and  well* 
balanced  essays  in  the  entire  field  of  Swinburne's  dramatic  criticism, 


1.  Dryden,  Essays « ed.  Ker.,  1900,  Vol.I,  p 82 


-■ »» 


48 


CHAPTER  IV 

Conteniporaries  of  Shakespeare 

I think  little  or  no  opposition  would  be  made  to  the  state- 
ment that  no  critic  has  evinced  greater  love  for  or  Interest  in 
Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  dramatists  than  has  Swinburne.  Chief  among 
his  treasures  from  the  time  he  entered  school  till  the  end  of  his 
life  were  cherished  editions  of  the  playwrights  of  this  period.  He 
read  the  plays  over  and  over,  coiiunitting  entire  acts  to  memory.  Hie 
great  desire  was  to  give  to  others  the  same  understanding  and  appre- 
ciation of  their  works  that  he  himself  felt,  and  with  this  purpose 
in  mind  he  began  writing  The  Age  of  Shakespeare.  In  a letter  to  his 
yo;ingest  sister,  written  March  23rd,  1908,  Swinburne  says,  "I  am,  or 
rather,  I ought  to  be  very  busy  on  part  of  the  book  which  will  be  my 
chief  work  in  prose  - The  Age  of  Shakespeare.  This  means  of  course 
a careful  study  of  his  predecessors,  contemporaries  and  successors 
in  the  art  of  dramatic  poetry  - from  two  years  after  the  rout  of  the 
Armada  to  the  dawn  of  the  great  civil  war."^  This  book  was  publishec 
in  1908,  but  many  of  the  important  dramatists  were  not  included  in 
it.  After  the  death  of  the  critic,  Mr.  T.J.  Wise  purchased  from 
Watts-Dunton  several  \inpublished  manuscripts,  among  which  were  fur- 
ther essays  on  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  dramatists.  These  were  pub- 
lished in  1909  under  the  title  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare.  The 
essay  on  Chapman  is  the  only  one  which  had  appeared  in  print  before. 
It  was  appropriate  that  Swinburne's  last  writing  in  the  field  of 
criticism  should  deal  with  the  period  and  the  dramatists  he  loved  so 
well. 

1.  Leith:  The  Boyhood  of  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne,  with  Letters. 

1917,  p 211, 


I 


Vll'MIWv'''  'JW~ 


' . ■ BJjrv  .'  s 

,,7,*"P  ■- .Vi  , F •.,',  •T^TK'Tti 

-‘.  •iijy 


-,7T 


Xk>  Vi  T 1 rr  


i !;  • 

1 j? 

;/ii  «tft.  2^>'.9ycf  >i!r^ 


SfK.  tit. 'Yo<  fjitii  -civ^^nt  xo^Toisf. 


or*  Of' 


in*  ^ , tl6:  e'^T^otr^ 

,,  ' <&  ■>  / ‘ )f  . V - , '’'. 


ffl4-V'.-.o  nc’fUip  a-‘.'V  ■ - *s-4t^‘»ti  <*o«  :iei4? 


t<o  t 


^-.V- 


■j  ■■  - :.j  ■ ■‘“  .'  .-^.  ^ ' f 


''^Vi'.f,.'^^  io^  ftirl'?'  Jl-irv.tiJ'  dltftf...^"t*o  »'ittJilri^^r*?>#l‘i 

rti  i.orUXor.i  ^:;;t 


V.  ■ » 


,.,  tyffi 

dOCC  jixi, 

I >-’■■  ' 

tso'iT  %*  iy  .2^/"  .-rjif 

vv  . ' ,'  - -)*  ' ’''*  'r:^ >a  '■  -'V  ■ V- 

^ 


fci..  ij-  . ..a  . ■.  ■.  ,^t  - ,i'.-  *>'■' ^ ^K  -j»  .'V  JPfi^‘'V‘-. 


e’liT  f^Tt'^7:;'? 


4- 


,l‘ 


.'i 


, ■’  V'*'v;  *j^:'  'i« ;.  ►■‘•1  ••■  ' , , -V,.  "/"^'  - , :•  ,'<:V‘  • ""'  ■ 


■ 1-0  '-si : 


xi'  • :,^I 

f 't'i.  ••.■■.'*'  ' ■'  I .*'•  ...^.  . ' 


49 


The  limits  of  this  paper  preclude  the  consideration  of  very 
many  of  these  essays  of  dramatic  criticism,  or  a lengthy  dissertation 
on  any  one  of  them.  I have  chosen  five  which  seem  to  me  to  represent 
very  well  Swinburne's  method  of  criticism,  not  taking  time  to  deal 
with  all  the  points  which  he  raises  in  connection  with  each  of  them, 
but  selecting  those  qualities  or  characteristics  which  seem  to  make 
the  strongest  appeal  to  the  critic.  The  essays  on  Chapman,  on 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  and  on  Webster  are,  on  the  whole,  among  the 
beet  and  the  most  well-balanced  of  Swinburne's  essays  on  Elizabethan 
dramatists.  In  these  he  keeps  closer  to  the  straight  path  of  criti- 
cism and  allows  fewer  of  hie  own  peculiarities  as  a critic  to  in- 
trude than  in  most  of  the  other  essays  from  hie  hamd.  I have  in- 
cluded Marlowe  and  Tourneur  because  they  have  called  out  a different 
side  of  Swinbutne's  criticism.  In  Marlowe  we  see  again  Swinburne- 
the  enthusiast,  bowing  every  energy  and  faculty  in  the  dust,  offer- 
ing incense  and  tribute,  unconscious  of  or  blind  to  any  hint  of  clay 
in  his  idol,  Tourneur  makes  an  enormous  appeal  to  the  critic  on  ac- 
count of  his  marvellous  command  of  vehement  eloquence  and  the  depth 
and  fire  of  his  emotions.  There  seems  to  be  a sort  of  personal  touct 
between  reviewer  and  reviewed.  But  let  Swinburne  speak  for  himself. 

Christopher  Marlowe 

Swinburne's  enthusiasm  for  Marlowe  is  almost  as  unrestrained 
and  unreasoning  as  his  adoration  of  Shakespeare.  What  he  writes  of 
Marlowe  cannot  be  called  criticism;  it  is  an  outpouring  of  excessive 
admiration,  and  shows  clearly  the  poet's  attitude  of  almost  frantic 
worship  of  Marlowe,  but  with  cool  and  sane  appreciation  it  has  noth- 
ing to  do.  We  need  spend  no  further  time  with  Swinburne's  treatment 


'^.’v ' ''  ' 


■..^.  . ■ : ' ■'!> . I-'. 


'yi 

cv  ':  ■:•  . ft.  .«»•'  ••?'•'  tc'-i..-. 


1 


»•-  ‘ ■(>,. 

» ' ' ' (!•»!».  V/ 


)»  W 


'■4 

!! 


i>  . ■ i:  . 


i. : ' 

a;"  “jo 


, .*  ’i. ?*'•:?  ^y.  ■ f -ut 

, -r.  : •/,  :>;i  -^oirfr  . ■ ' .) 

j'’o  '•  4 '■■ 

O'!- 


<•  ; I a , ■•» 


■ ‘ -t  r 


.v%  • . " . ^.•‘> 


'}  i-:- 


1 r'  ‘ ., . 


i'  i 


C’oU'  ' 


? , 

■V 


..  .#.- 


'.  'q/. 

^ . 


/iO  0 ! •'•  t *:-j  'y.-'  V-.,, 

* '•  f ' ’■ 

V " ''1  ■ V - 'r/j 


:Da  .-•■ 


r 

fa't 4.  qiiis  ''io-  'rr.-gi'r'ju. 

■■'  . n/  i'i  i '-y  •. <'‘‘' 

•j.  ' <v  , ?;•:  i!  t 1- 

V-  ;:  ■'.'  . 4i3|fcf,  ti'X  ' 

• ■ ■ ' V.  ^ -I  ,),'.•; 

':o  eri'i'  )■■:■■ 

' -i  r»t  ru'.qis 


,.y‘' 


’:  r.T'  r>.. 

'!Z&  ,/W 

''  '.  .6 


r ’•  ' 


V 


-t-H'I 


.%•  . '-.  H k-.^-r. 

V > ,H  Vi/*  *.sJ  I 


■ t'SO  \ 

V? 


'■*  • X a.' ■ ' . ....  -t'.'.  • 


<'>r.  rr.  •.;  > *•■>?  : •..>  ■>.  ■;  ^ 
■ ■ 1/  r ^ 


M 


^ .' ‘if*  *, »j *, «,  Ml  ^ ' 1 li  0 

^ •■■'  kliV/Ti  ' 

!fot 


■ ■ ’ ' ’ Air'  vl-ii'.  i ;■  :■. OTSSatli.  ' - '.- 

r : :.  ::•  t;  a * ^■■f.  . ^ ■ 'y 


' - ;.t,v  .-■; ; 0*-  .^'‘i 


. V 


(?*.■  ■■■ 


r — j 


iir,  -^iiii- 


50 


of  this  contemporary  of  Shakespeare  than  to  give  a series  of  quota- 
tions which  will  suffice  to  indicate  the  character  of  hie  criticism, 
if  we  may  call  it  that,  of  Marlowe.  "He  alone  was  the  true  Apollo 
of  our  dawn,  the  bright  and  morning  star  of  the  full  midsummer  day 

of  English  poetry  at  its  highest.  Of  English  blank  verse  the 

genius  of  Marlowe  was  the  absolute  and  divine  creator.  By  mere  dint 
of  original  and  godlike  Instinct  he  discovered  and  called  it  into 

life  he  left  the  marvellous  Instrument  of  his  invention  so 

nearly  perfect  that  Shakespeare  and  Milton  came  to  learn  of  him."^ 
"In  the  heaven  of  our  tragic  song  the  first-born  star  on  the  fore- 
head of  its  herald  god  was  not  outshone  till  the  full  midsummer 
meridian  of  that  greater  godhead  before  whom  he  was  sent  to  prepare 
a pathway  for  the  sun.  Through  all  the  forenoon  of  our  triumphant 
day,  till  the  utter  consummation  and  ultimate  ascension  of  dramatic 
poetry  incarnate  and  transfigured  in  the  master-singer  of  the  world, 
the  quality  of  his  tragedy  was  as  that  of  Marlowe’s,  broad,  single, 
and  intense;  large  of  hand,  voluble  of  tongue,  direct  of  purpose."^ 
"Sublimity  is  the  test  of  Imagination  as  distinguished  from  inven- 
tion or  from  fancy:  and  the  first  English  poet  whose  powers  can  be 

3 

called  sublime  was  Christopher  Marlowe."  "It  has  not  always  been 
duly  remarked,  it  is  not  now  always  duly  remembered,  by  students  of 
the  age  of  Sheikespeare  that  Marlowe  is  the  one  and  only  precursor  of 
that  veritable  king  of  kings  and  lord  of  lords  among  all  writers  and 

1.  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 128. 

3.  Swinburne;  Shakespeare.  1905,  p 77. 


3.  Swinburne;  Age  of  Shakespeare,  p 1 


r ' ''M  . 


■vW^  ' ^ «<«-•%'«  '/*' 


i > .1- 


'■,  ■ 0 i .rtSf.  1, , 


^olL 


r I ^ 


I •■ 


:'■  ;tr'i 

■ 


m 


i 4*. . . 


. . * l.  -*?',•  Y 


^ 'V. 


r ' . -••• 


n-  . •;, 


. I . . 


' t » ^ i ' * ^ 

■ .*  ...iC^  ^v 

• " --l.Oiw" 

, ■ a "■ 

!-’:•  ■ t "w)i>’  :.c 

■■  >ort 

\.,^i  j t J.  i 

tr  ■ V.v/ 

■ ^'. .' . v;'.,  :ib'. : • ^ 2t.:;  - 

. :..  / ■■?•.'■  '(•!  ■>..■•?;;*’■.*;•  •>'.Ci;'  .'  >0$*!  ‘I  •>♦?'  y i.  /•  ,' , 

• * '*■  '■■'  -cr;.-,  \’-0  to  irV-noi-f  1,44' ^I" 

"■'  ' . 'LI 

j:  .■•<>■:  ,, ii^-5  ;iio' J-.:;-:  ' ^ 

,■-:>  /ri.;i.::- 


.■1  l■<r».,  ‘MN/r-t  » I • 


I •-  * 


^0  i.OJ{}-  v/c  f f ' ■ a V yi\'\ 

I 

i"  •'••;-•  t^ '.  .li:  .'• 


- '■  .V  ■ ' 


f.n-x 


■-T  ':t. 


k. 


l .‘  • 


,-;  ^'OOTi/)^  , -1 ' ' ' ; • ■>  •'  ''l-j  \ 0(V 

■ -“•■'■  ; :..*,(I*ii:ir4rii.."a  iU  i,-'-  •■■;.);.  •>•»*  V 

->t'  ..;■:«  i : ■ I ':  io; 

: v.l 


* ' ^ ;i 


; ■ . . ;.  .'  ti'-  '. 


' -•  ' '^■"’^!  * ■ . 


^ ,:S.L 


'i-.lii  w''  : 


■ ^ r A • ’*.*?•  • I V ' * ^ 

^ •'  /.  ' -.V^i  J\  1,  X » »!>  i.f  ^ 


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,,.  's« 


i - Ilk  .‘.'■ 


■^/  »»  .’  j.  4.*,'  .r„»fc. 


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•?  ‘i.  , .1  • 


,i' jf'j; ; 'ih,',  ]’  ‘-i  V , ' '■’  . 

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T--  ■ ■■  : iK 

, : ,r. . .’  :■  I* :nv  *i\i  I j 



'■-..if 


«*  *•' 


— < ^ 


51 


all  thinkers  of  all  tlme."^  "Marlowe  differs  from  such  little  people 
as  Peele  and  Greene  not  in  degree,  but  in  kind,  not  as  an  eagle  dif- 
fers from  wrens  or  titmice,  but  as  an  eagle  differs  from  frogs  or 
tadpoles,"^  "In  Marlowe  the  passion  of  ideal  love  for  the  ultimate 
idea  of  beauty  in  art  or  nature  found  its  perfect  and  supreme  expres- 
sion, faultless  and  xmforced.  The  radiant  ardour  of  his  desire, 
the  light  and  flame  of  hie  aspiration,  diffused  and  shed  through  all 
the  forms  of  his  thought  and  all  the  colours  of  his  verse,  gave  them 
such  shapeliness  and  strength  of  life  as  is  given  to  the  spirits  of 
the  greatest  poets  alone. "In  its  highest  and  most  distinctive 
qualities  in  unfaltering  and  infallible  command  of  the  right  note  of 
music  and  the  proper  tone  of  colour  for  the  finest  touches  of  poetic 
execution,  no  poet  of  the  most  elaborate  modern  school,  working  at 
ease  upon  every  consummate  resource  of  luxurious  learning  and 
leisurely  refinement,  has  ever  excelled  the  best  and  most  representa- 
tive work  of  a man  who  had  literally  no  models  before  him. "In 
the  most  glorious  verses  ever  fashioned  by  a poet  to  express  with 
subtle  and  final  truth  the  supreme  aim  and  the  supreme  limit  of  his 
art,  the  glory  and  the  joy  of  his  labour,  the  satisfaction  and  in- 
sufficience  of  its  triumph  in  the  partial  and  finite  expression  of 
an  infinite  delight  and  an  infinite  desire,  Marlowe  has  summed  up 
all  that  can  be  said  or  thought  on  the  office  and  the  object,  the 
means  and  the  end  of  this  highest  form  of  spiritual  ambition,  which 

1.  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 4. 

2.  Ibid,  p 9. 

3.  Ibid,  p 128. 

4.  Swinburne:  Age  of  Shakespeare,  p 2. 


' r • :>'■  ■ ',  ;'•  f,:;: -rr  ' '•  •-;«r  %W‘’^ ''  ' r.-.«- 1- 

-■  •'  ■ Cv  V ' /■<  ■ S. 

l,l  ■ ^ f-.  -••'  •’■'••  .« 

;-r'  • .*-Tr.^:?»t;t5.x^;]iiri-  i^'^V  4o;’  »%0  rj  \rtJtS|«tf' 

■ ■ ,-^,,  - ^v  , fij-v.  'J.  ^ ^-v-  ^ 

.*A , aU.*3t)X<10 

Sa'.T'ISQh  ' ‘ - ■ h ' ' ^ r 

IllfTl:,  liJ  '•♦*  «4.t  Y<1  a»*«« 

■‘  '«vX*iorti«5,iw  :>!X3. 

!■,-■■  ,7^'-"  ’®'  '.t/'  '■''loriiL*  s' 

li)  tic'Xr  trL'ul'^-  '^.at 5 


P .,i 


■:\  ' X'/ 


z©  ^ 


^ . . U^^tn'tfTk  .^ocx*-  aJte'Xr 

’■  ,>'^*'’v/ ■’  ^ '•;'<!-  ■ \^-H  . . 

^0f<.t-Mr  a*»/r  9^f  .^!««cr4»3i.A4<iit»v#'  TUaa/atdy 

._  . '.  ' -/.4"  ■ ’,  : .'.■'* ''IV'  ; ■''■'  E" '-^ 

P»y  'V'''VsiS  ©n  t£cifta(^fit  ■'  .ifl 


' • . ■’■  .*-  iTftf  •■'(  . ■''  fj  «-  I 


I7*tj  -. 

f#.  - ».•'  . . * ■ > * ■/’. . -Xk-  T1  , 


ffr; 


-#v 


M- 


■ ‘i  ■. 


Ml  ':^.<- 


'I' 


h*.  '{ifi 


\ ■ *, 


l‘ 

!i 


'/  ’A^ 


a;  ■ •■ : 


- X' ■ 
ji)i  ^ 


t 


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I’ 


,1'  *'t 


W!T3»^ 


52 


for  him  was  as  it  were  shadowed  forth  in  all  symbols  and  reflected 
in  all  shapes  of  humaji  energy,  in  all  exaltations  of  the  spirit,  in 

all  aspirations  of  the  will.  No  poet  ever  came  nearer  than 

Marlowe  to  the  expression  of  this  inexpressible  beauty,  to  the  incar- 
nation in  actual  form  of  ideal  perfection,  to  the  embodiment  in  mor- 
tal music  of  immortal  harmony;  and  he  it  is  who  has  left  on  record 
and  on  evidence  to  all  time  the  truth  that  no  poet  can  ever  come 
nearer. 

George  Chapman 

The  qualities  of  Chapman's  work  and  style  which  are  stressed 
more  than  any  others  by  Swinburne  are  his  massiveness,  his  turgidity 
and  his  forcefulness.  Chapman  was  a man  of  great  learning  and  mighty 
intellect,  but  these  very  factors  sometimes  proved  to  be  more  of  hin- 
drance than  of  help.  The  weight  of  his  knowledge  and  his  effort  to 
express  himself  in  a manner  which  he  considered  befitting  the  subject 
and  his  own  ideals  of  dramatic  art  put  heavy  shackles  upon  the 
Pegasus  of  his  genius.  "The  main  fault  of  hie  style  is  one  more  com- 
monly found  in  the  prose  than  in  the  verse  of  his  time  - a quaint 
and  florid  obscurity,  rigid  with  elaborate  rhetoric  and  tortuous  with 
labyrinthine  illustration  - not  dark  only  to  the  rapid  rea,der  through 
closeness  and  subtlety  of  thought,  like  Donne,  whose  miscalled  ob- 
scurity is  so  often  'all  glorious  within',  but  thick  and  slab  as  a 
witch's  gruel  with  forced  and  barbarous  eccentricities  of  articu- 
lation. As  his  language  in  the  higher  forme  of  comedy  is  always 
pure  and  clear,  and  sometimes  exquisite  in  the  simplicity  of  its 

1.  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  pp  130-1. 


V'-  ' "■  ' ' : '’  V''’’ ',’ ■ ' '■  ■ ' ‘ -PJ^  ' ^•' 


>5.  ■ 


•^v  1' 


•'■'J 


lA. 


■V 


■ wr":  d-'  i 

'<^'<1  '■  -^,  .■'  4 

-‘  -V^i:-5>,.'  d,-.' 


a ^ .^vMtzvf  'i  ro:v«fYi5Vf^;Tyi»ritwV;.:^ 

'i  ' f ’ ' ' . . ■ : vs  - 


(2y  4>-iW  /ja  y.vf  Jj4)yc‘ .■  0 

„ ' ■.  ^ ■ ■'  * ' ' ■ ' j iii.?.'  ‘‘A^V  ' ? ..;■  I ,,  'W.  'jA.< 


■ • " ' ■ '►  .,  ■< ' ” ■ '^\  '■  j4-'''  ' ' "*T ’ ' '«!  ' ■ ■' 

'P  ■'?!  1.  ' Mit  ■ 

',  ■;  -;^  fl”f.,  ‘w  , ' • l ' ’ I 'li  • ,,(/;,  • |JE>  ■,.  ; ; '■■ 


L (■ 


■i|A'i,  , ' ‘•■'ri‘"43 


sftiirTi-y  ‘ x^o^-a  ■I’V'it 

X,.  f;  fc?,  •' 


ift-  A 


. I'  ■■  ■ * \ 

.«l^:tl!>,  '|,D 

■ W 


K - .'  *'■  " wA  ,A  -■  ■■'>;  . ■ V ,.  ■ , ■ : .' 


'r  ■ pasfe''  ■■' 

■^'"  ■ ^ ’ •■  '"  . A ;-:  ■’'^■■  ':'>'y-/l'^^-  .'•'y&  'vj»SvA4i^ 

-Jo  A'*(1 ;,.  • ,v;TfeA”{>,jJ,ilf'^  ';t,^  ‘ 


I- 


mm 


... 

iSp . , V ■ >'  ' ■ . i' 


A" 


rwsj^srnf:"^;:? 


53 


sincere  and  natural  grace,  the  stiffness  and  density  of  hie  more  ani- 
hitious  style  may  perhaps  be  attributed  to  some  pernicious  theory  or 
conceit  of  the  dignity  proper  to  a moral  and  philosophic  poet."^  "In 
almost  every  page  of  Chapman’s  noblest  work  we  discern  the  struggle 
and  the  toil  of  a powerful  mind  convulsed  and  distended  as  by  throes 
of  travail  in  the  effort  to  achieve  soqiething  that  lies  beyond  the 
proper  aim  and  the  possible  scope  of  that  form  of  art  within  which 
it  has  set  itself  to  work."^  Chapman  had  a "native  tendency  to  the 
grotesque  and  tedious®  and  his  style  was  often  full  of  "crabbed 
turgidity  and  barbarous  bombast."^  Too  often  the  author  inflicts 
upon  us  "hurried, broken-winded  rhetoric,  the  heavy  and  convulsive 
movement  of  broken  and  jarring  sentences."^ 

But  this  massiveness  and  vigor  has  also  its  finer  side  when 

V 

purged  of  the  superfluities  which  more  generally  present  themselves 
as  stumbling  blocks  than  as  stepping  stones.  "He  had  a singular 
force  and  solidity  of  thought,  an  admirable  ardor  of  ambitious  de- 
votion to  the  service  of  poetry,  a deep  and  burning  sense  at  once  of 
the  duty  Implied  and  of  the  dignity  inherent  in  his  office;  a vigor, 
opulence,  and  loftiness  of  phrase,  remarkable  even  in  that  age  of 
spiritual  strength,  wealth,  and  exaltation  of  thought  and  style;  a 
robust  eloquence,  touched  not  infrequently  with  flashes  of  fancy, and 
kindled  at  times  into  heat  of  imagination."®  "The  breadth  of  brow, 

1.  Swinburne;  Age  of  Shakespeare,  p 257. 

2.  Swinburne;  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 132. 

3.  Ibid,  p 18. 

4.  Ibid,  p 21. 

5.  Ibid,  p 23. 

6.  Swinburne;  Age  of  Shakespeare,  p 257. 


54 


the  weight  of  brain,  the  fullness  of  speech  and  the  fire  of  spirit 
make  amends  for  the  harsh  voice  and  stammering  tongue  that  imperfect- 
ly deliver  the  message  entrusted  to  them.  The  fervid  vitality 

transfigures  and  atones  for  all  clumsiness  of  gesture  or  deformity 
of  limb."^  Of  The  Conspiracy  and  Tragedy  of  Charkes  Duke  of  Byron. 
Marshal  of  France.  Swinburne  has  this  to  say,-  "No  poem,  I syppose, 
was  ever  cast  in  dramatic  form  which  appealed  so  wholly  to  the  pure 
intellect.  The  singleness  of  purpose  and  the  steadiness  of  reso- 
lution with  which  the  poet  has  pursued  hie  point  have  made  his  work 
that  which  it  is:  a sculptured  type  and  monument  of  hie  high  and 
austere  genius  in  the  fulness  of  its  faculties  and  the  ripeness  of 

c 

its  aims."®  "It  has  an  epic  and  Titanic  enormity  of  imagination, 
the  huge  and  naked  solitude  of  a mountain  rising  from  the  sea,  whose 
head  is  bare  before  the  thunders,  and  whose  sides  are  furrowed  with 
stormy  streams."^ 

It  is  hie  inexorable  determination  and  perseverance,  his  great 
learning  and  his  massiveness  which  furnish  the  critic  the  chief  basis 
for  comparison  of  Chapman  with  Joneon.  "He  alone,  as  far  as  I can 
see,  among  all  the  great  men  of  his  age,  had  anything  in  common  with 

Jonson  for  good  or  evil.  A weight  of  learning  bowed  and  deformed 

the  genius  of  Jonson  and  of  Chapman.  Chapman,  being  the  lesser 
scholar,  was  naturally  the  greater  pedant  of  the  pair."^  "Here 
again  we  find  that  Jonson  and  Chapman  stand  far  apart  from  their 
fellow  men  of  genius.  The  most  ambitious  and  the  most  laborious  poet 

1.  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 97. 

3.  Ibid,  p 77. 

3.  Ibid,  p 83, 

4.  Ibid,  p 122. 


1 1'^  J ■ •- ' “,  -l.v''’^  * - ;.S'^  .iVA  - .1  m' 

't*’  ■ ..  T , '■  ' 

' ■!  ' 1 . ' :'•'  / e-'-'vjA  ^.  i^f  ': 


•i  ♦ :-i  ■ Ci^' 

.’.'’I?.”  i'>;ii ••,■:• 


'/t'  J '%  * " ' ' »-. 

''  • ■■  ■ - ' ' ■ "A  V..I 

:. ' ' '/  . «*'  ■ ^ ■ 

.Z'.  1 - _.  "VtCl-.T 

f- 

-V  *..  t - r. 

* •',. 

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< >,..  ,.  '• ;. 

— ul^6?rU  ^ 

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> : " 0 . 2v 

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,.‘V  .,  ./'  ::.z:>K-.  ^ ^ ‘ 

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■ M-r  ^;^.•.  i 

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[ji-i  rf^rji  : 


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55 


of  their  day,  conscious  of  high  aims  and  large  capacities,  they  would 
be  content  with  no  crown  that  might  be  shared  by  others;  they  had 
each  hie  own  severe  and  haughty  scheme  of  study  and  invention,  and 
sought  for  no  excellence  which  lay  beyond  or  outside  it;  that  any 
could  lie  above,  past  the  reach  of  their  strong  arms  and  skilful 
hands,  past  the  scope  of  their  keen  and  studious  eyes,  they  would 
probably  have  been  unable  to  believe  or  to  conceive.  And  yet  there 
were  whole  regions  of  high  poetic  air,  whole  worlds  of  human  passion 
and  divine  imagination  which  might  be  seen  by  humbler  eyes  than 
theirs  and  trod  by  feebler  feet,  where  their  robust  lungs  were  power- 
less to  breathe,  and  their  strenuous  song  fell  silent."^  "The  hard 
effort  of  a strong  will,  the  conscious  purpose  of  an  earnest  ambi- 
tion, the  laborious  obedience  to  a resolute  design,  is  as  percepti- 
ble in  Jonson  and  Chapman  as  in  Shakespeare  and  Marlowe  is  the  in- 
stinct of  spiritual  harmony,  the  loyalty  and  the  liberty  of  impulse 
and  of  work."^  "There  is  an  absence  or  insignificance  of  feminine 
interest  in  both.  The  wide  field  of  Chapman's  writings  will  be  found 
well  nigh  barren  of  any  tender  or  noble  trace  of  passion  or  emotion 
kindled  between  man  and  woman. The  'shaping  spirit  of  imagination' 
proper  to  all  great  men,  and  varying  in  each  case  from  all  other, 
reforms  of  itself  its  own  misshapen  work,  treads  down  and  tri\imphs 
over  its  own  faults  and  errors,  renews  its  faltering  forces  and  re- 
sumes its  undiminished  reign.  But  he  who  in  so  high  a matter  as  the 
dramatic  art  can  sin  so  heavily,  and  so  triumphantly  tread  under  the 
penalty  of  his  transgression,  must  be  great  among  the  greatest  of 

1.  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 127. 

8.  Ibid,  p 132. 

3.  Ibid,  p 125. 


56 

hiB  fellows.  Such,  with  all  his  excesses  and  shortcomings  in  the 
way  of  dramatic  work,  was  Jonson;  such,  certainly,  was  not  Chapman."^ 
As  a portrayer  of  character.  Chapman  is  inferior  to  Jonson, 
but  in  respect  to  the  method  of  characterization,  there  is  at  least 
one  point  of  similarity  between  the  two  dramatists.  "A  few  broad 
strokes  often  repeated  suffice  to  complete  the  simple  and  vigorous 
outline  which  is  all  he  can  give  us  of  a character.  Chapman  is  al- 
ways least  happy  when  he  tries  hie  hand  at  analysis;  he  only  does 
well  when  he  brings  before  us  a figure  at  once  full-grown,  and  takes 
no  care  but  to  enforce  the  first  impression  by  constant  deepening  of 
the  lines  first  drawn,  not  by  addition  of  fresh  light  and  shade,  by 

O 

softening  or  heightening  minor  tones  and  effects."®  Chapman's 
characters  find  little  but  condemnation  from  Swinburne.  "The  charac- 
ters (of  An  Hiimorous  Day’s  Mirth)  are  a confused  crowd  of  rough 
sketches,  whose  thin  outlines  and  faint  colours  are  huddled  together 
on  a ragged  canvas  without  order  of  prdportion. " "No  poet  ever 
shov/ed  less  love  or  regard  for  women,  less  care  to  study  or  less 

4 

power  to  paint  them."  "There  is  no  depth  or  delicacy  of  character 
discernible  in  any  of  the  leading  characters  (of  Bussy  D'Ambois);  in 
some  cases  indeed  it  is  hard  at  first  to  determine  whether  the  author 
meant  to  excite  the  sympathies  or  the  antipathies  of  the  audience  for 
a good  or  for  a bad  character;  the  virtue  of  his  heroine  collapses 
without  a touch,  and  friends  and  foes  change  sides  with  no  more 
reason  shown  than  that  the  figure  of  the  dance  requires  it.  Any 

1.  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 125. 

2.  Ibid,  pp  79-80. 

3.  Ibid,  p 46, 

4.  Ibid,  p 123. 


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57 

child  may  see  and  object  that  no  man  ever  died  with  such  a funeral 
oration  on  his  lips.  The  privilege  of  tragic  poetry  to  exceed  the 
range  of  realism  is  here  strained  to  the  utmost.  The  epic  decla- 

mation of  the  speaker  breaks  the  last  limit  of  law  to  attain  the  last 
limit  of  licence  possible  to  a style  which  even  in  outward  form 
keeps  up  any  pretence  of  dramatic  plausibility."^ 

Like  Jonson,  too.  Chapman  was  blessed  and  cursed  with  a fer- 
tile genius  for  invention,  but  he  does  not  know  how  to  handle  as 
skillfully  as  does  the  greater  dramatist  the  wealth  of  material  whict 
he  accumulates.  Some  parts  of  his  plays  are  too  thickly  besprinkled 
with  allusions  and  unnecessary  episodes,  while  in  other  parts  we 
feel  a lack  of  incident,  or  a waste  of  material  which  promised  well 
but  which  was  not  developed.  "His  philosophy  is  apt  to  lose  its  way 
among  brakes  of  digression  and  jungles  of  paradox;  his  subtle  and 
sleepless  ingenuity  can  never  resist  the  lure  of  any  quaint  or  per- 
verse illustration  which  may  start  across  its  path  from  some  obscure 
corner  at  the  unluckiest  or  unlikeliest  time;  the  rough  and  barren 
highways  of  incongruous  allusion,  of  unseasonable  reflection,  or  pre- 
posterous and  grotesque  S3rmbollSffi,  are  more  tempting  to  his  feet  than 
the  highway  of  art.  But  from  first  to  last  the  grave  and  fre- 

quent blemishes  of  his  genius  bear  manifestly  more  likeness  to  the 
deformities  of  a giant  than  to  the  malformations  of  a dwarf. "More 
than  once  indeed  the  author  has  managed  his  overture,  or  what  in  the 
classic  dialect  of  the  old  French  stage  was  called  the  exposition, 
with  a skill  and  animation  giving  promise  of  better  things  to  come 
than  he  has  provided;  as  though  he  had  spent  the  utmost  art  his 

1.  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 75. 

2.  Swinburne;  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 16. 


58 

genius  could  command  in  securing  the  interest  of  his  audience  at  the 
first  start,  and  then  left  it  for  chance  to  support,  letting  his 

work  float  at  will  on  the  lazy  waters  of  caprice  or  negligence.  

(In  Monsieur  d’Olive)  The  underplot,  diverting  enough  in  a slight 
way  for  one  or  two  scenes,  is  stretched  out  on  the  tenter  hooks  of 
farcical  rhetoric  or  verbose  dialogue  till  the  reader  finds  himself 
defrauded  of  the  higher  interest  which  he  was  led  to  expect,  and 
wearied  of  the  empty  substitute  which  the  wa3rwardness  or  indolence 
of  the  author  has  chosen  to  palm  off  on  him  in  its  stead, 

The  moral  tone  of  an  author *s  work,  hie  interest  in  the  emo- 
tions and  his  sympathy  or  lack  of  sympathy  with  his  characters  al- 
ways obtained  notice  from  Swinburne.  As  a rule,  he  considers  that 
Chapman  exhibits  "a  singular  force  and  depth  of  moral  thought,"^ 
although  "it  will  be  admitted  that  the  moral  tone  of  his  two  earli- 

3 

est  comedies  is  not  remarkably  high."  In  cliticising  Caesar  and 
Poaroey.  Swinburne  says,  - "I  know  of  nothing  in  moral  or  contempla- 
tive poetry  more  admirable  than  the  speech  in  the  first  scene  on 
fear  or  distrust  of  the  gods,  and  the  soliloquy  in  the  last  act  on 
sleep  and  death.  The  serene  and  sublime  emotion  of  heroic  wisdom  is 
in  either  passage  so  touched  and  tempered  with  something  of  the  per- 
sonal ardour  of  a noble  passion  that  its  tone  and  effect  are  not 
merely  abstract  or  didactic  but  thoroughly  dramatic  and  human, 

"He  was  ready  enough  to  read  lectures  on  love  or  lust  but  of 

pure  passion  and  instinctive  simplicity  of  desire  or  delight  there 

1. Swinburne: Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 58. 

3,  Ibid,  p 16. 

3.  Ibid,  p 45. 

4.  Ibid,  p 95. 


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59 

is  little  more  trace  than  of  higher  emotion  or  deeper  kicowledge  of 
such  things  as  belong  alike  to  mind  and  body,  and  hold  equally  of 
the  spirit  and  the  flesh, "The  quality  of  pathos  is  not  among  the 
dominant  notes  of  Chapman *s  genius."^  "The  Gentleman  Usher  is  dis- 
tinguishable from  all  his  other  works  by  the  serious  grace  and 
sweetness  of  the  love  scenes,  and  the  higher  tone  of  feminine  charac- 
ter and  masculine  regard  which  is  sustained  throughout  the  graver 
passages."^  "At  all  times  Chapman  took  occasion  to  approve  himself 
a true  son  of  the  greatest  age  of  Englishmen  in  his  quick  and  fiery 
syn^pathy  with  the  daring  and  the  suffering  of  its  warriors  and  ad- 
venturers,"^ 

Swinburne  has  charged  Chapman  with  not  being  able  to  resist 
the  lure  of  any  illustration  which  may  chance  to  cross  his  path  at 
the  unlikeliest  time.  The  same  'accusation,  somewhat  modified,  may 
be  brought  against  the  critic.  He  is  too  ready  to  go  off  at  a tan- 
gent at  any  opportunity  which  presents  itself  for  an  expression  of 
his  especial  prejudices  or  favoritisms.  The  connection  which 
Chapman  had  with  Marlowe  through  the  poem  Hero  and  Leander  gives 
Swinburne  a chance  to  expatiate  on  the  splendid  qualities  of  Marlowe j 
but  the  best  example  of  this  type  of  digression  is  the  eleven-page 
discussion  which  in  this  essay  he  devotes  to  Browning.  In  speaking 
of  the  obscurity  of  Chapman’s  style,  Swinburne  takes  occasion  to  re- 
ply to  the  charge  of  the  same  fault  which  some  critics  had  brought 
against  Browning.  Swinburne  has  a good  point;  he  compares  the  heavy, 

1,  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare ,pp  126-7. 

2,  Ibid,  p 80. 

3,  Ibid,  p 56. 

4,  Ibid,  p 41. 


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60 


slow-moving  intellect  of  Chapman,  his  "random  thinking  and  random 
writing  which  alone  can  produce  obscurity. "^with  the  "spider-like 
swiftness  and  sagacity  of  Browning^  building  spirit  which  "leaps 
and  lightens  to  and  fro  and  backward  and  forward  as  it  lives  along 
the  animated  line  of  its  labour,  springs  from  thread  to  thread  and 
darts  from  center  to  circumference  of  the  glittering  and  quivering 
web  of  living  thought  woven  from  the  inexhaustible  stores  of  his  per- 
ception  and  kindled  from  the  inexhaustible  fire  of  his  imagination. 
But  not  content  to  make  the  distinction  between  real  obscurity  in- 
herent in  a writer’s  intellect  and  style,  and  the  charge  of  obscurity 
which  some  readers  lay  at  the  door  of  an  author  through  their  own 
inability  to  follow  the  "swift  and  fine  radiations,  the  subtle  play 
and  keen  vibrations  of  the  sleepless  fires"  of  an  "intelligence  which 
moves  with  such  ceaseless  rapidity"^  as  does  Browning’s,  Swinbiirne 
moves  on  from  this  comparison  to  a several  page  discussion  of  Fif ine 
at  the  Fair  and  Sardello.  However,  aside  from  these  two  instances, 
the  essay  on  Chapman  is  remarkably  free  from  interpolations  of  ex- 
traneous matter  and  from  frequent  or  marked  evidences  of  prejudices 
or  biases  peculiar  to  Swinburne. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher 

"For  any  man  born  only  a little  lesser  than  the  greatest,  a 
little  lower  than  the  angels  or  the  gods  of  song,  it  is  the  heaviest 
and  most  enduring  of  all  conceivable  misfortunes  to  have  been  rated 


1.  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 27. 

2.  Ibid,  p 26. 

3.  Ibid,  p 27. 


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61 


for  a time  among  them  if  not  above  them."^  Acting  upon  the  belief 
that  their  true  merits  have  been  either  over-rated  or  under-valued 
through  a too  meticulous  comparison  with  their  contemporaries, 
Swinburne  sets  out  to  consider  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  work  of 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  apart  as  much  as  possible  from  other  produc- 
tions of  the  period. 

The  qualities  of  style,  expression,  and  lightness  of  touch 

receive  the  highest  meed  of  praise  from  the  critic.  "The  matchless 

instinct  of  expression,  the  incomparable  lightness  of  touch,  which 

distinguishes  the  best  work  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  from  all  other 

triumphs  of  poetic  comedy  in  the  language,  carries  off  and  sweeps 

away  all  too  curious  or  serious  consideration  of  character  of  con- 
2 

duct."  "It  must  be  admitted  that  the  vital  and  enduring  fasci- 
nation of  this  beautiful  and  famous  play  (Philaster)  depends  less  on 
character  or  on  incident  than  on  the  exquisite  and  living  loveliness 
of  the  style  - most  attractive  when  least  realistic,  most  memorable 

•7 

when  least  dramatic."  "In  perfect  workmanship  of  lyrical  jewellery, 
in  perfect  bloom  and  flower  of  song  writing,  they  equal  all  compeers 
whom  they  do  not  excel;  the  blossoms  of  their  growth  in  this  kind 
may  be  matched  for  colour  and  fragrance  against  Shakespeare's,  and 
for  morning  freshness  and  natural  purity  of  form  exceed  the  finest 
grafts  of  Jonson."^  "The  buoyant  and  facile  grace  of  FletOher's 
style  carries  him  lightly  across  quagmires  in  which  a heavier-footed 

1.  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 145. 

2.  Ibid,  p 163. 

3.  Ibid,  p 149. 

4.  Encyclopaedia  Brittanica.  11th  Ed.,  Vol.III,  p 596. 


^ ' M.  ^ 


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62 


poet,  or  one  of  slower  tread,  would  have  stuck  fast,  and  come  forth 

bemlred  to  the  knees.  His  crown  of  praise  is  to  have  created  a 

wholly  new  and  wholly  delightful  form  of  mixed  comedy  or  dramatic 
romance,  dealing  merely  with  humours  and  sentiments  of  men,  their 
passions  and  their  chances;  to  have  woven  from  these  a web  of  emotior 
and  event  with  such  gay  dexterity,  to  have  blended  his  colours  and 
combined  his  effects  with  such  exquisite  facility  and  swift  light 

sureness  of  touch  a fresh  incomparable  charm,  force  and  eas6 

and  grace  of  life  which  fill  and  animate  the  radiant  world  of  his 
romantic  invention."^ 

This  easy  grace  of  expression  and  light  skipping  from  one 

flower  to  another  militated  against  any  deep  consideration  of  human 

emotion  and  passion  or  any  vital  analysis  of  character.  "In 

Fletcher's  tragedy,  however  we  may  be  thrilled  and  kindled  with  high 

contagious  excitement,  we  are  never  awed  into  dumb  delight  or  dread, 

never  pierced  with  any  sense  of  terror  or  pity  too  deep  or  even  deep 

2 

enough  for  tears.®  "Fletcher's  highest  studies  of  female  character 
have  dignity,  energy,  devotion  of  the  heroic  t3rpe;  but  they  never 
touch  us  to  the  quick,  never  waken  in  us  any  finer  and  more  profound 
sense  than  that  of  applause  and  admiration.  To  excite  compassion  was 
enough  for  Fletcher,  as  in  the  masculine  parts  of  his  work  it  was 
enough  for  him  to  excite  wonder^  to  sustain  Curiosity,  to  goad  and 
stimulate  by  any  vivid  and  violent  means  the  interest  of  readers  or 

3 

spectators."  Forceful  and  consistent  characterization  seemed 

1.  Encyclopaedia  Brittanica,  11th  Ed.,  Vol.III,  p 595. 

2.  Ibid,  Vol.III,  p 595. 

3.  Ibid,  p 594. 


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63 

beyond  the  power  of  these  dramatists  to  attain.  There  was  inherent 
in  them  "a  boyish  or  feminine  incapacity  to  draw  even  in  outline, 

to  paint  even  in  monochrome,  the  likeness  of  a man.  Among  all 

their  tragic  or  serious  heroes  we  may  look  in  vain  for  the  lifelike 
figure  of  a conceivable  and  acceptable  man. "We  find  Fletcher  to 
the  very  last  only  too  liable,  through  mere  weakness  of  handling  or 
uncertainty  of  design,  to  such  error  or  such  perversity  as  impairs 
or  effaces  the  effect  intended;  his  heroes  swagger  like  cravens,  his 
constancy  is  \metable  as  water,  and  hie  chastity  is  more  immodest 
than  wantonness  itself."^  "The  monstrous  and  abnormal  criminality 
of  the  almost  incredible  heroine  (in  The  Captain)  is  more  like  the 
impudent  fancy  of  a naughty  boy  than  the  corrupt  imagination  of  a 

3 

depraved  man. " 

The  failure  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  to  make  their  characters 
real  personages  to  us  is  due  to  a great  extent,  and  especially  is 
this  true  in  the  case  of  Fletcher,  to  their  striving  for  stage  ef- 
fect. "The  reader  of  Fletcher's  tragedies  can  never  quite  get  away 

4 

from  the  besetting  sense  of  the  theatre."  "Often  Fletcher  will 
sacrifice  all  seemliness  and  consistency  of  character  to  the  present 
aim  of  stage  effect,  and  the  instant  icpreesion  of  strong  incident 
or  audacious  eloquence.  Hie  heroines  are  too  apt  to  utter  eentimente 

5 

worthy  of  Diana  in  language  unv/orthy  of  Doll  Tear  sheet."  In  A King 

1.  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 148. 

3.  Ibid,  p 188. 

3.  Ibid,  p 159. 

4.  Ibid,  p 165. 

5.  Encyclopaedia  Brittanica,  11th  Ed.,  Vol.III,  p 595. 


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64 

and  No  King,  "all  serious  study  of  character,  all  rational  or  moral 
evolution  of  conduct,  is  wantonly  if  not  shamelessly  sacrificed  to 
the  immediate  effect  of  vehement  if  not  sometimes  galvanic  sensation 
or  surprise."^  "The  Maid  * s Tragedy  is  the  first  example  of  an 
English  play  in  which  all  other  considerations  are  subordinated  to 
the  imperious  demands,  the  dominant  exactions,  of  stage  effect."^ 

"In  theatrical  magnificence  of  incident  and  effect  A King  and  No  King 
as  as  supreme  a triumph  as  is  Othello  or  King  Lear  in  poetic  sublim- 
ity and  spiritual  intensity  of  truth. "In  the  magnificent  melo- 
drama or  tragicomedy  of  The  Little  French  Lawyer,  it  would  be  impos- 
sible to  overpraise  the  brilliancy  of  invention,  the  deftness  of  com- 
position, or  the  splendour  of  its  execution,  but  the  brutality  of 
boyhood  is  as  evident  as  its  joyfulness, 

Absence  of  moral  tone  brings,  as  usual,  a note  of  dissatis- 
faction from  Swinburne.  He  finds  that  "Fletcher  is  liable  to  confuse 
the  shades  of  right  and  wrong,  to  deface  or  efface  the  boundary  lines 
of  good  and  evil,  to  stain  the  ermine  of  virtue  and  palliate  the 
nakedness  of  vice  with  the  same  indecorous  and  incongruous  laxity  of 
handling. "The  riotous  and  outrageous  farce  of  Wit  at  Several 
Weapons  is  such  a play  as  might  conceivably  have  been  written  in  his 
nonage  by  a bastard  son  of  Ben  Jonson  who  had  inherited  more  of  the 
worse  than  of  the  better  qualities,  intellectual  and  moral,  of  his 

1.  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 153. 

2.  Ibid,  p 150. 

3.  Ibid,  p 152, 

4.  Ibid,  p 160, 

5.  Encyclopaedia  Britt anica.  11th  Ed.,  Vol.III,  p 595, 


65 


illustrious  father.  (The  opening  scene)  is  the  most  seriously 

and  odiously  revolting  passage  in  all  the  various  and  voluminous 
work  of  these  great  dramatic  poets  - or  of  any  that  I can  remember 
among  their  fellows.  And  this  comes  of  taking  life  and  character 
too  lightly  and  too  stagily."^ 

And,  finally,  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  the  twin 
dramatists  are  summed  up  in  the  following  manner:-  ”To  Beaumont  his 
stars  had  given  tragic  pathos  and  passion,  tender  power  and  broad, 
strong  humour;  to  Fletcher  a more  fiery  and  fruitfiil  force  of  inven- 
tion; a more  aerial  ease  and  swiftness  of  action,  a more  various 

readiness  and  f\ilness  of  bright  exuberant  speech. The  genius  of 

Beaumont  was  deeper,  sweeter,  nobler  than  his  elderb;  the  genius  of 
Fletcher  was  more  brilliant,  more  supple,  more  prodigal,  and  more 
voluble  than  his  friend's.  Beaumont  may  fairly  be  said  to  hold  of 
Shakespeare  in  his  tragedy,  and  in  his  comedy  of  Jonson;  rather  as 
an  ally  than  as  a follower;  but  the  more  special  province  of  Fletcher 
was  a land  of  hie  own  discovering,  where  no  later  colonist  has  ever 
had  power  to  settle  or  to  share  his  reign. 

Swinburne’s  ire  is  excited  by  the  unfortunate  estimate  of  an 
Oxford  critic,  which  placed  Fletcher  above  Shakespeare,  and  he  turns 
aside  to  blast  this  instance  of  presumption,  and  incidentally  treads 
on  the  toes  of  another  critic.  "That  typical  Oxonioule,  the  Rev. 
William  Cartwright,  'the  most  florid  and  seraphioal  preacher  in  the 
the  university, ' not  only  daiiined  himself  to  everlasting  fame,  but 
did  what  in  him  lay  to  damn  the  reputation  of  Fletcher  by  assuring 

1.  Swinburne:  Contempcraries  of  Shakespeare,  p 162. 

2.  Encyclopaedia  Brittanlca,  11th  Ed.,  Vol.III,  p 595. 


66 


his  departed  spirit  that  "Shakespeare  to  thee  was  dull,  obscene,  in- 

artistic,  scurrilous*  The  criticism  is  worthy  of  Mathew  Arnold; 

and  even  he  could  not  have  surpassed  it  in  perversity  of  cultivated 
in^ertinence  and  audacity  of  self-erratic  conceit."^  But,  like  the 
essay  on  Chapman,  Swinburne *s  criticism  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher 
follows  the  path  on  which  it  first  sets  out  with  remarkably  few  devi- 
ations. The  criticism  is  not  complete,  as  he  deals  mainly  with  the 
earlier  plays  of  the  dramatists,  and  leaves  out  of  consideration  the 
usual  points  in  which  he  is  not  particularly  interested,  but  what  he 
has  said  has  the  ring  of  sincerity  and  carries  with  it  the  impres- 
sion of  sane  judgment. 

John  Webster 

"The  first  quality  which  all  readers  recognize  is  of 

course  his  command  of  terror.  Except  in  Aeschylus,  in  Dante,  and  in 
Shakespeare,  I at  lea.st  know  not  where  to  seek  for  passages  which  in 

sheer  force  of  tragic  and  noble  horror  may  be  set  against  the 

subtlest,  the  deepest,  the  sublimest  passages  of  Webster.  Other 
gifts  he  had  as  great  in  themselves,  as  precious  and  as  necessary  to 
the  poet;  but  on  this  side  he  is  incomparable  and  unique.  Neither 
Marlowe  nor  Shakespeare  had  so  fine,  so  accurate,  so  infallible  a 
sense  of  the  delicate  line  of  demarcation  which  divides  the  impres- 
sive and  the  terrible  from  the  horrible  and  the  loathsome.  

Again  and  again  his  passionate  and  daring  genius  attains  the  utmost 

limit  and  rounds  the  final  goal  of  tragedy;  never  once  does  it  break 

2 

the  bounds  of  pure  poetic  instinct." 

1,  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  pp  145-6. 

2.  Swinburne:  AR-e  of  Shakespeare,  p 33. 


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67 


Swinburne's  admiration  for  Webster  is  largely  concerned  with 
the  power,  the  force  and  the  depth  of  his  conceptions,  and  with  the 
high  nobility  of  his  poetic  ideals.  The  critic  places  Webster  in 
the  next  rank  to  Shakespeare,  and  the  comparisons  which  must  inevit- 
ably be  made  between  the  two  are  as  little  as  possible  to  the  dis- 
credit of  the  later  dramatist.  Swinburne  is  here  following  his  own 
dictum  that  the  critic  should  be  attracted  to  his  subject  by  the  lov« 
of  praising,  rather  than  by  the  desire  to  pick  flaws.  The  judgment 
which  Swinburne  passes  on  Webster  is  on  the  whole  trustworthy  and 
authoritative.  What  he  says,  though  expressed  in  a manner  different 
from  that  which  others  would  probably  have  used,  wakens  responsive 
echoes  of  similar  feelings  in  the  reader.  Every  student  of  Webster 
has  been  struck  again  and  again  with  hie  command  of  terror,  as  ex- 
pressed by  Swinburne  in  the  quotation  given  above,  and  with  the  powea 
and  forcefulnese  of  his  genius.  "It  is  only  with  Shakespeare  that 
Webster  can  ever  be  compared  in  any  way  to  his  disadvantage  as  a 
tragic  poetj  above  all  others  of  his  country  he  stands  indisputably 
supreme.  The  tragedies  of  Webster  share  in  so  large  a measure  with 
the  tragedies  of  Shakespeare  a plenitude  and  perfection  of  dramatic 
power  in  construction  and  a dramatic  subtlety  in  detail."^  "The 
force  of  hand,  the  fire'  of  heart,  the  fervor  of  pity,  the  sympathy 
of  passion,  not  poetic  or  theatric  merely,  but  actual  and  immediate, 
are  qualities  in  which  Webster  is  not  less  certainly  or  less  \mmie- 
takably  pre-eminent  than  Shakespeare.  And  there  is  no  third  to  set 
beside  them,"^  "In  the  deepest  and  highest  and  purest  qualities  of 
tragic  poetry  Webster  stands  nearer  to  Shakespeare  than  any  other 

1.  Swinburne:  Age  of  flhakespeare.  p 58. 

2,  Ibid,  p 16. 


68 


English  poet  stands  to  Webster.  Not  one  among  the  predecessors,  con- 
temporaries, or  successors  of  Shakespeare  and  Webster  has  given 
proof  of  this  coequal  mastery  of  terror  and  pity,  undiscolored  and 
undistorted,  but  vivified  and  glorified,  by  the  splendor  of  immedi- 
ate and  infallible  imagination."^ 

This  quality  of  imagination,  which  is  so  essential  to  a poet, 
was  particularly  worthy  of  praise  as  found  in  Webster.  "There  are 
only  two  poets  in  the  age  of  Shakespeare  who  make  us  feel  that  the 
words  assigned  to  the  creatures  of  their  genius,  are  the  very  words 
they  must  have  said,  the  only  words  they  could  have  said,  the  actual 

words  they  assuredly  did  say.  The  crowning  gift  of  imagination, 

the  power  to  make  us  realize  that  thus  and  not  otherwise  it  was, 
that  thus  and  not  otherwise  it  must  have  been,  was  given  - except  by 

exceptional  fits  and  starts  - to  none  of  the  poets  of  their  time  but 

2 

only  to  Shakespeare  and  to  Webster." 

"The  nobility  of  spirit  and  motive  which  is  so  distinguishing 
a mark  of  Webster's  instinctive  genius  or  natural  disposition  of 
mind  is  proved  by  his  treatment  of  facts  placed  on  record  by  contem- 
porary annalists.  He  has  recognized,  with  Shakespearean  accuracy 

and  delicacy  and  elevation  of  instinct,  the  necessity  of  ennobling 
and  transfiguring  his  characters  if  their  story  was  to  be  made  ac- 

3 

ceptable  to  the  sympathies  of  any  but  an  idle  or  ignoble  audience." 
"The  immeasurable  superiority  of  Aeschylus  to  his  successors  in  this 
quality  of  instinctive  righteousness  is  shared  no  less  by  Webster 
than  by  Shakespeare.  The  grave  and  deep  truth  of  natural  impulse  is 

1.  Swinburne:  Age  of  Shakespeare,  p 46. 

2.  Ibid,  p 15. 

3.  Ibid,  p 38. 


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69 


never  Ignored  by  these  poets  when  dealing  either  with  innocent  or 
with  criminal  passion."^  "Webster,  notwithstanding  an  occasional 
outbreak  into  Aristophanic  licence  of  momentary  sarcasm  through  the 
sardonic  lips  of  such  a cynical  ruffian  as  Ferdinand  or  Flamineo,  is 
without  exception  the  cleanliest,  as  Marston  is  beyond  comparison 
the  coarsest  writer  of  his  time."^  "There  is  no  poet  morally  nobler 
than  Webster."^ 

The  characters  of  Webster  are  never  wholly  immoral  or  without 
any  redeeming  feature.  "There  is  a cross  of  heroism  in  almost  all 
Webster’s  characters  which  preserves  the  worst  of  them  from  such 
hatefulness  as  disgusts  us  in  certain  of  Fletcher’s  or  of  Ford’s; 
they  have  in  them  some  salt  of  manhood,  some  savor  of  venturesome 
and  humorous  resolution,  which  reminds  us  of  the  heroic  age  in  which 

4 

the  genius  that  begot  them  was  born  and  reared." 

Webster’s  originality  as  a poet  also  receives  notice  from 
Swinburne.  "In  his  command  and  in  his  use  of  the  metre  first  made 
fashionable  by  the  graceful  improvisations  of  Greene,  Webster  seems 
to  me  as  original  and  as  peculiar  as  in  his  grasp  and  manipulation 
of  character  and  event.  All  other  poets  have  used  it  for  none  but 
gentle  or  gracious  ends;  Webster  has  given  it  the  cadence  and  the 
color  of  tragedy."® 

To  sum  up,  Webster's  "more  distinctive  qualities  are  intensity 
of  idea,  concentration  of  utterance,  pungency  of  expression  and  ardor 

1.  Swinburne:  Age  of  Shakespeare,  p 36 • 

2.  Ibid,  p 60, 

3.  Ibid,  p 36. 

4.  Ibid,  p 18. 

5.  Ibid,  p 50. 


70 

of  pathos." We  find  in  hie  works  that  "especial  note  of  tragic 

style,  concise  and  pointed  and  tipped  as  it  were  by  fire,  which  makes 
it  impossible  for  the  dullest  reader  to  mistake  the  peculiar  pres- 
ence, the  original  tone  or  accent,  of  John  Webster."^ 

Cyril  Tourneur 

To  Swinburne,  the  impetuous  eloquence  and  fiery  rush  of  words 
which  characterize  the  plays  of  Cyril  Tourneur,  was  a source  of  de- 
light and  inspiration.  Much  akin  to  the  critic  himself  in  this  re- 
spect, the  genius  of  Tourneur  flashes  forth  in  unforgetable  vehemence 
of  sentiment  and  phraseology.  But  unlike  Swinburne,  Tourneur  exer- 
cises at  will  a steadying  hand  over  the  flood  of  words  and  emotions. 
Swinburne,  able  to  appreciate  in  all  its  fullness  the  fineness  of 
Tourneur's  scathing  eloquence  and  moral  indignation,  also  recognizes, 
though  \mable  to  exemplify  the  practice  in  his  own  life  and  works, 
the  value  of  the  restraint  which  the  dramatist  at  times  imposes  upon 
his  genius.  "There  are  few  indeed  outside  the  pale  of  the  very 
greatest  who  can  display  at  will  their  natural  genius  in  the  keenest 

concentration  or  the  fullest  effusion  of  its  powers.  But  among  these 

2 

fewer  than  few  stands  the  author  of  The  Revenger ' s Tragedy. " "The 
startling  and  magical  power  of  single  verses,  ineffaceable  and  in- 
eradicable from  the  memory  on  which  they  have  once  impressed  them- 
selves, distinguishes  and  denotes  the  peculiar  style  of  Cyyil 
Tourneur's  tragic  poetry."^  "The  strange  and  splendid  genius  which 
inspired  The  Revenger ' s Tragedy  seems  to  drink  such  deep  delight 

1.  Swinburne:  Age  of  Shakespeare,  p 27. 

2.  Ibid,  p 287. 

3.  Ibid,  p 285. 


71 

from  the  inexhaustible  wellsprings  of  its  wrath,  that  rage  and  scorn 
and  hatred  assume  something  of  the  rapturous  quality  more  naturally 
proper  to  faith  and  hope  and  love."^ 

Swinburne  likes  to  make  comparisons  between  Tourneur  and 
Shakespeare,  especially  in  respect  to  this  impetuosity  of  speech  and 
style.  "In  his  noblest  hours  of  sustained  inspiration  he  is  at 
least  the  equal  of  the  greater  dramatist  on  the  score  of  sublime  and 
burning  eloquence,  poured  forth  in  verse  like  the  rushing  of  a 

o 

mighty  wind.®  "It  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that  in  mere  style, 
in  commanding  power  and  pUrity  of  language,  in  positive  instinct  of 
expression  and  direct  eloquence  of  inspiration,  Tourneur  stands 
alone  in  the  next  rank  to  Shakespeare.  The  fiery  ;jet  of  his  molten 
verse,  the  rush  of  its  radiant  and  rhythmic  lava,  seems  alone  as  in- 

3 

exhaustible  as  that  of  Shakespeare's."  "The  fusion  of  sarcastic 
realism  with  imaginative  passion  produces  a compound  of  such  peculiar 
and  fiery  flavor  as  we  taste  only  from  the  tragic  chalice  of  Tourneur 
or  of  Shakespeare."^  "More  splendid  success  in  pure  dramatic  dia- 
logue has  not  been  achieved  by  Shakespeare  or  by  Webster  than  by 
Tourneur  in  his  moments  of  happiest  invention  or  purest  inspiration.*^' 
"It  is  certainly  indispiitable  except  by  the  blatant  audacity  of  im- 
medicable ignorance  that  the  only  poet  to  whose  manner  and  style  the 
style  and  manner  of  Cyril  Tourneur  can  reasonably  be  said  to  bear 

g 

any  considerable  resemblance  is  William  Shakespeare."  "The 

1,  Swinburne:  Age  of  Shakespeare,  p 269. 

2,  Ibid,  p 270. 

3.  Ibid,  p 280. 

4,  Ibid,  p 281. 

5.  Ibid,  p 263. 

6.  Ibid,  p 276. 


...  


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72 


Revenf?er*s  Tragedy,  the  most  perfect  and  most  terrible  Incarnation 
of  the  idea  of  retribution  impersonate  and  concentrated  revenge  that 
ever  haunted  the  dreams  of  a tragic  poet  or  the  vigils  of  a future 
tyrannicide,  is  resumed  and  embodied  in  a figure  as  original  and  as 
impossible  to  forget,  for  anyone  who  has  ever  felt  the  savage  fasci- 
nation of  its  presence,  as  any  of  the  humaner  figures  evoked  and 
immortalized  by  Shakespeare."^ 

Tourneur's  style  has  individual  merits  aside  from  those  re- 
spects in  which  it  is  comparable  to  Shakespeare's.  "The  verse  is 
unlike  any  other  man's  in  the  solemn  passion  of  its  music.  It  is  so 
rich  and  full  and  supple,  so  happy  in  its  freedom  and  so  loyal 
in  its  instinct,  that  its  veriest  audacities  and  aberrations  have 
an  indefinable  harmony  of  their  own. "As  a writer,  he  is  one  of 
the  very  few  poets  who  in  their  happiest  moments  are  equally  fault- 
less and  sublime.  We  recognize  in  this  great  poet  one  more  of  those 
Englishmen  of  genius  on  whom  the  direct  or  indirect  influence  of  the 
Hebrew  Bible  has  been  actually  as  great  as  the  influences  of  the 

3 

country  and  the  century  in  which  they  happened  to  be  born. " 

There  are  some  excellent  characters  in  the  plays  of  Tourneur, 
but  although  they  are  well,  if  hastily,  drawn,  their  aptness  and 
goodness  impress  one  as  being  rather  incidental.  Swinburne  is  right 
when  he  emphasizes  the  moral  passion  as  the  most  outstanding  moti- 
vation and  characteristic  of  Tourneur's  dramas.  He  was  "a  poet  whose 
line  of  work  was  naturally  confined  to  the  limits  of  moral  or  ethical 
tragedy"  in  whom  "the  noblest  ardour  of  moral  emotion,  the  most 

1.  Swinburne:  Age  of  Shakespeare,  p 273. 

2.  Ibid,  p 270, 

3.  Ibid,  p 281. 


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73 

fervent  passion  of  eager  and  indignant  sympathy  with  all  that  is  best 
and  abhorrence  of  all  that  is  worst  in  men  and  women. burned  high. 
"The  obsession  of  evil,  the  sensible  prevalence  of  wickedness  and 
falsehood,  self-interest  and  stupidity  pressed  heavily  on  hie  fierce 
aftd  indignant  imagination;  yet  not  so  heavily  that  mankind  came  to 
seem  to  him  the  'damned  race'."^  Indeed,  the  "intensity  of  moral 
passion"  was  such  that  it  often  "has  broken  the  outline  and  marred 
the  symmetry  of  the  general  design. The  character  and  quality  of 
his  work  is  rather  well  defined  and  summed  up  when  Swinburne  says 
that  the  genius  of  Cyril  Tourneur  "holds  absolute  command  in  a 

strictly  limited  province  of  reflection  and  emotion.  The  double 

mainspring  of  its  energy  is  not  difficult  to  define;  its  component 
parts  are  simply  adoration  of  good  and  abhorrence  of  evil;  all  other 
sources  of  emotion  were  subordinate  to  these;  love,  hate,  resentment, 
self-devotion,  are  but  transitory  agents  on  this  lurid  and  stormy 
stage  which  pass  away  and  leave  only  the  sombre  fire  of  meditative 
indignation  still  burning  among  the  ruins  of  shattered  hopes  and 
lives. 


1.  Swinburne:  Age  of  Shakespeare,  p 289. 

2.  Ibid,  p 264. 

3.  Ibid,  p 263, 

4.  Ibid,  p 263, 


74 

CHAPTER  V 
Summary 

Swinburne  was  essentially  a subjective  critic.  If  Shakes- 
peare unlocked  his  heart  in  his  sonnets,  Swinburne  may  much  more  cer- 
tainly be  said  to  unlock  his  heart  in  all  his  work,  critical  as  well 
as  poetical.  Something  of  self-revelation  through  one’s  writing 
cannot  be  avoided,  but  few  indeed  have  penned  themselves  into  their 
literary  work  as  has  Swinburne,  This  fact  renders  his  criticism 
doubly  interesting  and  doubly  difficult  to  evaluate.  Most  of  the 
characteristics  or  peculiarities  of  Swinburne  which  affect  his  criti- 
cal work  have  been  mentioned  in  previous  chapters;  the  purpose  of 
this  chapter  is  to  recapitulate  or  enlarge  upon  the  points  that  have 
already  been  made,  and  to  endeavor  to  gain  from  the  summary  of  these 
an  estimate  of  the  value  of  Swinburne's  dramatic  criticism. 

Swinburne  was  a stylist  as  much  as  an  impressionist. 

Wratislaw,  in  his  book  on  the  critic,  says  of  his  style,-  "The 
writer  is  intoxicated  with  hie  own  power  over  words,  and  scatters 
them  broadcast  like  jewels,  oblivious  in  the  delight  of  coloring  sen- 
tences of  his  duty  as  a critic."^  "In  Views  and  Reviews  Henry 

James  writes,-  "His  genius  is  for  style  simply  it  is  without 

measure,  without  discretion  a dozen  times  too  verbose.  One  half 

of  his  sentence  is  always  a repetition,  for  mere  fancy's  sake  and 

2 

nothing  more,  of  the  meaning  of  the  other  half."  This  habit  of 
linking  together  nouns,  adjectives  or  phrases  in  two's  and  three's, 
this  trick  of  switching  parts  of  speech,  is  at  times  extremely  an- 
noying, In  the  essay  on  Marfeton  we  find  this  sentence,-  "Some 


1.  Wratislaw:  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne,  p 158. 

2.  James:  Views  and  Reviews,  p 55, 


75 

perversity  or  obliquity  will  be  suspected,  even  if  no  positive  in- 
firmity can  be  detected,  in  hie  intelligence  or  in  hie  temperament: 

some  taint  or  some  flaw  will  be  assumed  to  affect  and  to  vitiate  his 

1 

creative  Instinct  or  hie  spiritual  reason."  Or  we  run  across  such 

meaningless  and  provoking  distinctions  as  these,-  "almost  as  loath- 

2 

somely  ludicrous  and  almost  as  ludicrously  loathsome";  "they  are 
unhealthily  conscious  of  their  unconscious  healthiness,"^  Swin- 
burne's fondness  for  alliteration  and  antithesis  received  sufficient 
illustration  in  the  second  chapter.  The  following  quotation  is 
cited  as  an  example  of  the  long  involved  sentences  which  are  the  de- 
light of  the  author  and  the  despair  of  the  reader.  "A  dunce  like 
myself,  who  measures  verse,  whether  in  his  reading  or  writing  les- 
son, by  ear  and  not  by  finger,  is  naturally  compelled  to  sit  down 
(if  he  can)  on  the  lowest  form  among  boys  who  get  up  their  Euclid  by 
the  simple  process  of  committing  it  to  memory;  for  it  must  by  this 
time  be  known  even  to  the  poor  votaries  of  an  inferior  form  of 
speech,  who  believe  that  verse  (the  lower  form)  is  distinguished  fron 
prose  (the  higher  form)  by  the  faculty  of  song  or  verbal  music,  and 
who  are  led  by  the  ear  (like  the  animals  they  most  resemble)  to  per- 
sist in  their  preference  for  the  lower  form  over  the  higher  on  this 
most  inadequate  and  absurd  account  - even  to  sense,  I say  it  must  be 
notorious  that  a grand  jury  of  Parnassian  pedagogues  has  established 
as  a primary  axiom  or  postulate  that  verse,  or  the  music  of  correspor 
sive  words,  in  common,  I presume, with  the  other  kind  of  music,  does 
not  appeal  to  the  ear  but  to  the  fingers;  and  by  the  fingers  only. 


1.  Swinburne:  Age  of  Shakespeare,  p 112. 

2.  Ibid,  p 112. 

3.  Swinburne:  Studies  in  Prose  and  Poetry,  1904,  p 137. 


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78 


and  in  no  case  by  the  ear,  can  it  be  judged."^  ”At  times,"  as  Thomae 
says  in  his  book  on  Swinburne,  "he  seems  to  write  for  the  sake  of 
constructing  formally  perfect  and  sonorous  sentences,  more  often  the 
kind  of  sentence  he  prefers  is  dictated  as  much  by  that  preference 
as  by  his  thought.  Now  he  must  find  something  unqualified  to  say 
about  everybody;  again  he  must  qualify  everything,  and  institute  dis- 
tinctions founded  apparently  rather  on  a love  of  repeating  phrases 
than  on  subtlety."^ 

Swinburne’s  excesses  in  style  are  the  outgrowth  of  that  same 
feature  of  his  ten^erament  which  demanded  from  him  the  violence  of 
vituperation  and  the  extravagance  of  adulation  which  he  was  too  ready 
to  indulge.  His  enthusiasm  combined  with  his  fondness  for  piling  up 
epithet  and  for  losing  himself  in  a storm  of  rhetorical  effect  to 
produce  a type  of  criticism  peculiarly  Swinburnian.  St.  John  E.  C. 
Hankin  makes  a good  comment  upon  the  main  current  of  Swinburne's 
critical  work  when  he  says  that  the  critic  recognizes  two  classes  of 
writers,  "one  to  be  overwhelmed  by  obloquy,  the  other  to  be  praised 
so  extravagantly  that  we  lose  sight  of  any  dividing  line  between  the 
lesser  and  the  greater  masterpiece,  while  the  nicer  points  of  criti- 
cism tend  to  disappear  altogether  in  tempestuous  eulogy  or  scorn. 
When  he  is  not  hurling  anathemas  at  the  goats,  he  is  respectfully 
petting  the  sheep.  Mr.  Swinburne  is  a poet,  not  a critic.  He  has 
the  vehemence  of  sympathy,  the  violence  of  repulsion,  which  belong 
to  the  poetic  temperament.  He  has  not  the  sobriety,  either  of  style 
or  of  judgment,  which  makes  criticism  weighty.  However  just  the 
author’s  view  may  be,  the  weight  of  his  opinion  is  diminished  rather 

1.  The  Academy.  Vol.IX,  Jan. 15,  1876,  p 54. 

2,  Thomas:  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne,  p 120. 


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77 


than  increased  by  the  intemperate  violence  of  his  expression.  

Unhappily  his  style  and  his  judgment  are  so  far  one  that  both  are 
marred  by  the  same  defect."^  In  considering  Swinburne’s  work,  then, 
his  judgments  must  be  weighed  against  hie  prejudices,  his  enthusiasme 
and  his  fondness  for  linguistic  effect  even  at  the  expense  of 
thought,  in  order  to  strike  a true  balance,  or  estimate  the  worth  of 
hie  critical  opinion.  But  the  very  fact  that  many  of  his  essays 
would  bewilder  rather  than  enlighten  the  average  reader  scores  a 
serious  count  against  the  critic.  Lucidity  is  one  of  the  prime 
requisites  of  good  criticism,  but  lucidity  is  too  often  a minus 
quantity  when  Swinburne  opens  the  flood-gate  of  his  eloquence.  As 
Paul  Elmer  More  says,  "The  reader  of  Swinburne  feels  constantly  as 
if  his  feet  were  swept  from  the  earth  and  he  were  carried  into  a 
misty  mid-region  where  blind  currents  of  air  beat  hither  and  thither 

he  longs  for  some  anchor  to  reality.  It  is  good  to  walk  with 

head  lifted  to  the  stars,  but  it  is  good  also  to  have  the  feet  well 
planted  on  the  earth. 

Not  only  must  care  be  taken  to  dilute  to  the  proper  consist- 
ency the  thick  sirup  of  praise  or  the  acrid  vinegar  of  scorn  with 
which  Swinburne  covers  the  objects  of  his  habitual  love  and  hatred, 
but  another  possible  misunderstanding  must  be  guarded  against. 
Wratislaw  has  said  of  him.-  "As  Shelley’s  skylark  was  an  unbodied 
joy,  he  is  an  unbodied  intellect  subject  to  continual  irritation."^ 
Swinburne  yielded  himself  up  too  entirely  to  the  impulse  of  the  mo- 
ment, and  expressed  himself  in  such  a manner  that  a reader  who  chanc<  i 

1.  The  Academy.  Vol.XLVI,  p 547,  Dec. 39,  1894. 

3.  More:  Shelburne  Essays.  3rd  Series,  1907,  p 102. 

3.  Wrathislaw:  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne,  p 174. 


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78 


upon  one  passage  would  receive  an  altogether  different  impression 
than  from  another  passage  in  the  same  essay.  In  the  heat  of  his  re- 
sentment at  some  piece  of  inferior  work  from  the  hand  of  a writer 
whom  otherwise  he  admired,  the  denunciation  in  which  he  allowed  him- 
self to  indulge  would  give  the  reader  who  did  not  know  the  critic’s 
real  opinion  the  impression  that  he  considered  the  author  altogether 
negligible  and  of  no  account.  Two  quotations  from  Swinburne’s 
criticism  of  Shirley  will  illustrate  the  different  effects  which,  as 
a result  of  this  characteristic,  would  be  gained  from  extracts  from 
the  same  essay.  ”Very  possibly  he  never  wrote  anything  quite  so 
bad,  so  insolently  faulty,  as  the  very  worst  improvisations  of  his 
master  Fletcher;  but  even  such  otherwise  unqualified  rubbish  as  the 
Sea  Voyage  and  The  Nice  Valour  have  the  one  qualifying  merit,  the 
one  extenuating  circumstance,  of  being  readable  - not  without  irri- 
tation, indignation  and  astonishment,  but  at  all  events  without 
stupefying  fatigue  and  insuperable  somnolence.”^  ”The  Cardinal  is  a 
model  of  composition,  simple  and  lucid  and  thoroughly  well  sustained 
in  its  progress  towards  a catastrophe  remarkable  for  tragic  origi- 
nality and  power  of  invention,  with  no  confusion  or  encumbrance  of 
episodes,  no  change  or  fluctuation  of  interest,  no  breach  or  defect 
of  symmetry. 

Although  Swinburne's  attitude  toward  the  dramatists  discussed 
in  this  paper  was  practically  the  same  throughout  his  entire  life, 
in  considering  him  as  a critic  it  is  well  to  remember  that  his  opin- 
ions sometimes  suffered  radical  change,  often  with  absurdly  insuf- 
ficient cause.  A brief  resume  of  the  evidence  given  in  Chapter  I 

1.  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 277, 

2.  Ibid,  p 303. 


79 


which  substantiates  the  foregoing  statement  will  suffice  to  bring 
the  Swinburnian  characteristic  more  clearly  to  mind.  His  early  at- 
titude of  admiration  and  cordial  regard  for  Walt  Whitman  continued 
until  1887,  when  he  began  to  pour  upon  the  American  poet  a flood  of 
sarcasm  and  vituperation.  Whistler,  who  had  been  a warm  friend  of 
Swinburne's,  suffered  a violent  attack  from  the  latter  in  the  Fort- 
nightly Review  of  June,  1888.  Watts-Bunton  was  with  Swinburne  during 
these  years,  and  for  Whitman  he  had  alY;ays  dntertained  only  feelings 
of  hearty  dislike.  In  regard  to  Whistler,  he  confessed  that  he  had 
never  liked  the  painter,  and  had  persuaded  Swinburne  to  write  the 
article.  In  the  essay  on  Chapman  Swinburne  devoted  several  pages  to 
glowing  praise  of  Browning,  but  after  Browning  accepted  the  presi- 
dency of  the  Shakespeare  Society ^with  which  Swinburne  was  offended, 
no  invective  could  be  too  harsh  for  the  critic  to  use  in  speaking  of 
Browning.  In  Matthew  Arnold's  Letters  of  1895,  Swinburne  read  a 
reference  to  "a  sort  of  pseudo-Shelley  called  Swinburne",  and  his 
previous  admiration  for  the  critic  was  turned  to  gall  and  hatred. 

In  1892  Swinburne  allowed  himself  to  print  a fiercely  denunciatory 
article  on  Vv.B.  Scott  because  an  editor  had  recorded  his  jealousy  of 
younger  and  more  famous  writers,  although  at  the  time  of  Scott's 
death  in  1890,  Swinburne  had  considered  him  a very  dear  friend.  Such 
changes,  due  to  personal  grudge  or  to  the  influence  of  another's 
will  on  hie,  add  another  blemish  to  his  career  as  critic. 

There  are  certain  points  of  criticism  which  we  may  expect  to 
find  emphasized  in  each  of  Swinburne's  essays,  and  there  are  other 
features  of  generally  accepted  criticism  which  receive  little  or  no 
attention  from  him.  A rapid  review  of  the  essays  we  have  studied 

will  serve  to  show  more  clearly  than  ever  that  it  is  a poet's 


80 


criticiem  we  are  considering,-  a poet  highly  gifted  in  emotional  and 
imaginative  faculties,  but  lacking  in  calm,  measured  and  sustained 
judgment.  All  degrees  of  attainment  in  verse-making  are  carefully 
noted;  the  quality  of  spontaneity  or  of  laborious  effort  is  commended 
or  condemned;  the  tendency  to  rhetorical  display  is  censured;  the 
question  of  the  influence  of  other  men's  work  receives  attention. 
There  is  always  a great  deal  to  be  said  about  the  moral  tone,  and 
slips  in  poetic  justice  and  equity  are  never  overlooked.  Of  dramatic 
construction  or  coherence  Swinburne  has  little  to  say,  so  long  as 

his  artistic  sense  of  the  necessity  for  the  blended  unity  of  the 

whole  is  satisfied.  The  critic  talks  a great  deal  about  character- 
ization, but  makes  no  real  analysis  of  character,  touches  it  not  at 

all  upon  the  psychological  side,  is  not  concerned  with  the  play- 

wright's method  of  presenting  his  characters.  His  comments  upon 
characters  are  mainly  confined  to  ranking  them  as  "the  noblest  man 
of  man's  making,"  or  "the  most  potent  demi-devil";  to  the  antithetical 
effect  produced  by  the  juxtaposition  of  one  character  to  another  in 
the  same  sentence;  to  compliments  upon  their  bravery  and  cunning, 
and  disapprobation  of  their  cowardice  and  meanness.  Points  of  dra- 
matic technique  or  stage  device  do  not  intrigue  the  interest  of  the 
critic,  nor  do  little  tricks  introducing  the  element  of  surprise  or 
of  expectation  claim  his  attention.  The  dramatist's  portrayal  of 
the  life  and  manners  of  the  period,  his  adherence  to  or  defiance  of 
the  laws  of  nature,  awaken  no  response  in  Swinburne.  He  does  not 
criticize  from  any  sense  of  necessity,  but  because  he  wants  to,  and 
the  same  feeling  prompts  him  to  select  for  consideration  those  ele- 
ments which  appeal  to  him.  Because  he  did  not  follow  any  rigid 

standard  of  critical  treatment,  but  wrote  for  the  pleasure  he  found 


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81 


in  it,  his  work  has  a much  more  personal  and  human  interest  than  that 
of  most  critics.  We  learn  as  much  about  the  writer  as  we  do  about 
the  man  being  passed  under  review.  We  see  Swinburne,  the  man  of 
ardent  sympathies,  of  passionate  loyalties  and  violent  prejudices; 
Swinburne,  the  enthusiast  over  literary  masterpieces  of  all  countries 
and  all  ages;  Swinburne,  the  reverer  of  woman  and  the  champion  of 
the  weak;  Swinburne,  the  artist  and  the  poet;  Swinburne,  the  child 
of  nature  and  of  the  sea,  worshipping  beauty  in  every  form; 

Swinburne,  the  advocate  of  republicanism  and  liberty;  even  the  Swin- 
burne who  preferred  a cat  to  a dog. 

In  some  of  the  digressions  in  which  he  takes  the  rea.der  into 
his  confidence,  we  are  given  interesting  glimpses  of  Swinburne’s 
attitude  toward  other  critics.  For  the  school  of  German  critics,  as 
has  already  been  mentioned,  he  has  neither  respect  nor  patience.  He 
even  hesitates  to  use  the  word  "unique”  because  it  has  "such  a tang 
of  German  affectation  in  it."^  Of  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  this  capacity, 
Swinburne  says  that  he  was  "neither  a profound  nor  a pretentious 
critic  - neither  a refined  nor  an  eccentric  theorist:  but  his  judg- 
ments have  always  the  now  more  than  ever  invaluable  qualities  of 
clearness  and  consistency."^  In  speaking  of  Arnold’s  criticism  of 
Shelley,  the  critic  says,  "Averting  our  faces  from  the  clouds  and 
the  sunsets  whose  admirers  give  so  much  offence  to  Mr.  Arnold,  what 
we  see  in  his  ovm  judgment  on  Shelley  and  Byron  might  be  symibolically 
described  as  a sunset  of  critical  judgment  in  a cloud  of  hazy  para- 
dox."^ Swinburne  commends  "the  earnest  search  or  labour  after 

1.  Swinburne:  Age  of  Shakespeare,  p 27. 

2.  Miscellanies,  p 91. 


3.  Ibid,  p 103 


82 

righteousness  of  judgment  and  absolute  accuracy  of  estimate  which 
always,  whether  it  may  finally  succeed  or  fail,  distinguishes  the 
critical  talent  of  Mr.  Rossetti."^  It  is  amusing  to  hear  fromi  the 
lips  of  Swinburne  the  following  innocent  remark:  ”The  curious  laxity 
with  which  educated  and  able  men  will  fling  about  epithets  when  en- 
gaged in  critical  comment  is  rather  singularly  exemplified  in  the 
terms  applied  by  Dyce  as  well  as  by  Hallam  to  so  magnificent  a work 
of  comic  and  tragic  genius  as  The  Custom  of  the  Country. Swin- 
burne admires  very  much  the  "exquisite  critical  sense  of  Coleridge",^ 
but  Lamb  is  the  critic  who  receives  his  full  measure  of  praise  and 
devotion.  In  speaking  of  what  others  have  said  about  Lamb,  the  man 
who  objects  to  the  curious  laxity  with  which  educated  and  able  men 
fling  about  epithets  when  engaged  in  critical  comment  expressed  him- 
self thus:  "The  syncophant  Moore  and  the  backbiter  Carlyle  have 

added  what  was  in  them  to  add  to  the  memorial  raised  by  Wordsworth: 
the  witness  of  the  toad  and  the  homage  of  the  scorpion  to  a creature 
who  could  not  crawl  and  would  not  sting. A very  few  of  the  many 
possible  quotations  will  suffice  to  set  forth  Swinburne's  attitude 
toward  that  earlier  impressionistic  critic  of  the  Elizabethans.  "To 
attempt  the  praise  or  the  description  of  anything  that  has  been 
praised  or  described  by  Lamb  would  usually  be  the  veriest  fatuity  of 
presumption;  and  yet  it  is  impossible  to  write  of  a poet  whose 
greatness  was  first  revealed  to  his  countrymen  by  the  greatest  critic 
of  dramatic  poetry  that  ever  lived  and  Tfrote,  and  not  to  echo  his 

1.  Swinburne:  Miscellanies,  p 6. 

2.  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 153. 

3.  Ibid,  p 31. 

4.  Swinburne:  Miscellanies,  p 158. 


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83 


words  of  righteous  judgment  and  inspired  applause  with  more  or  less 
feebleness  of  reiteration."^  "That  divine  cockney"^  was  the  greatest 
and  surest  critic  that  ever  wrote  or  ever  will  write  on  a subject  of 
unsurpassable  interest  to  any  historic  student  of  English  letters  anc 
of  English  character."^  "The  depth  and  width  of  his  knowledge,  the 
subtlety  and  the  sureness  of  his  intuition  place  him  far  ahead  of 
any  other  scholar  or  critic  who  has  ever  done  any  stroke  of  work  in 
any  part  of  the  same  field. "A  far  greater  than  they  (Campbell 
and  Dyce)  or  than  any  other  critic  of  our  great  dramatic  poets  has 
n6t  only  embalmed  its  noblest  passages  (Cupid’s  Revenge)  in  the 
deathless  amber  of  a priceless  volume,  but  has  selected  it  for  the 
supreme  honour  of  a condensed  rendering  into  narrative  prose  after 
the  fashion  of  his  incomparable  Tales  from  Shakespeare."^ 

Than  our  critic,  none  other  has  ever  possessed  surer  and  more 
extensive  knowledge  in  his  chosen  field  of  labor.  His  wide  reading, 
his  extraordinary  retentive  faculties,  and  his  marvellous  power  of 
expression  are  evidenced  in  every  page  of  his  writing.  Though  his 
judgments  rarely  have  to  do  with  any  really  deep  appreciation  or 
analysis,  he  is  an  imaginative  commentator  of  high  rank,  possessing 
keen  intuition  and  an  almost  infallible  poetic  taste.  If  we  see  the 
danger  of 'allowing  ourselves  to  be  bewitched  by  the  spell  of  hie 
eloquence  and  the  fascination  of  his  enthusiasm  into  accepting  for 
our  own  purely  Swinburnian  habits  of  thought  and  criticism, the  study 

1.  Swinburne:  Age  of  Shakespeare,  p 384. 

2.  Ibid,  p 187. 

3.  Ibid,  p 253. 

4.  Ibid,  p 200. 

5.  Swinburne:  Contemporaries  of  Shakespeare,  p 154. 


^ , V ' ' .1  ” MV 


84 

of  his  work  cannot  but  be  of  great  value  to  anyone  interested  in  the 
Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  drajiiat i et s . If  we  are  able  to  keep  our  own 
standards  intact  and  our  own  opinions  steady  enough  to  measure  the 
value  of  his  real  judgment,  disguised  as  it  may  be  by  the  peculiar 
Swinburnisriie  we  have  noted,  his  criticism  will  prove  to  be  of  the 
most  stimulating  and  picquing  kind.  No  one  of  his  studies  is  satis- 
factory as  a whole;  each  is  marred  by  some  defect  of  temperament, 
style  or  judgment,  but  they  come  straight  from  the  heart  of  the 
critic,  and  may  very  generally  be  said  to  go  straight  to  the  heart  of 
the  reader,  I wish  to  quote  in  conclusion  a paragraph  from  Murdoch's 
Memories  of  Swinburne,  which  seems  to  me  to  express  very  well  the 
essential  quality  of  Swinburne  as  critic.  "The  truth  is  that  Swin- 
burne's fascination  is  different  from  that  of  most  great  critics; 
and  while  Coleridge  compels  attention  by  strength  and  depth  of  mental 
vigor,  while  Lamb  appeals  owing  to  his  capacity  for  perception  and 
judgment,  and  while  Pater  bewitches  through  his  gift  of  expression, 
his  power  of  shaping  his  innermost  thoughts  into  words,  Swinburne 
wins  readers'  hearts  as  much  as  intellects,  and  makes  a demand  which 
commonly  belongs  to  poetry  rather  than  to  prose.  He  is  essentially 
the  poet  as  critic,  for  he  seems  never  to  essay  criticism  except  und- 
er an  impulse  bordering  on  inspiration;  and  his  criticism  is  the 
glorious  antithesis  of  that  of  the  academic  school,  whose  professors 
handle  literature  as  if  it  were  a Greek  text  or  a mathematical  prob- 
lem. The  main  excellence  of  Swinburne  is  that  notwithstanding  his 
scholarship,  his  writing  is  above  all  things  emotional,  and  sprung 
from  life  itself. "1 


1.  Murdoch:  Memories  of  Swinburne,  pp  18-19, 


85 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 
Swinburne ' s Works 

Age  of  Shake speare»  New  York  and  London,  1908, 

Contemporaries  of  Shake sneare,  ed.  Gosse  and  Wise,  London,  i919. 
Essays  and  Studies,  2nd  ed,,  London,  1876. 

Letters,  2 vols.,  ed  Gosse  and  Wise,  New  York,  1919. 

Miscellanies.  2nd  Ed.,  London,  1895. 

Poems  and  Ballads.  1st  series,  London,  1863. 

Shakespeare . London  and  New  York,  1909, 

Study  of  Ben  Jonson.  London,  1889. 

Studies  in  Prose  and  Poetry.  London,  1894. 

Study  of  Shakespeare,  London,  1880, 

Three  Plays  of  Shakespeare.  New  York,  1880. 

Biographical,  Critical,  and  Illustrative  Works 
Brock,  A.C.:  Essays  on  Books.  2nd  ed.,  London,  1921. 

Cambridge  History  of .English  Literature.  Vol.  XIII, 

Coleridge,  Samuel  T_:  Works,  ed.  Shedd,  New  York,  1868,  Vol. IV. 
Drinkwater,  John:  Swinburne  - An  Estimate.  London,  1913. 

Dryden,  John:  Essays,  ed,  Ker.,  Oxford,  Vol.  I,  1900, 

Elton,  Oliver:  Modern  Studies.  London,  1907, 

Encyclopaedia  BritVanica.  11th  ed.,  Vol, III. 

Gosse,  Edmund:  The  Life  of  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne.  New  York,-  1917 
Gosse,  Edmund:  Portraits  and  Sketches.  London,  1913, 

Hazlitt,  William:  Works . ed.  Waller  and  Glover,  London,  Vol. V., 1902. 
Henderson,  W.B.D-:  Swinburne  and  Landor . London,  1918. 


James,  Henry:  Views  and  Reviews,  Boston,  1908 


86 

Kernahan,  Coulson:  In  Good  ComTpany.  New  York,  1917. 

Leith,  Mrs.  Disney:  Boyhood  of  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne.  London, 

1917. 

Maokail,  J.W.:  Swinburne . Oxford,  1909. 

Meynell,  Alice:  Hearts  of  Controversy.  London,  1918. 

More,  Paul  Elmer:  Shelburne  Essays,  ed  Series,  New  York  and  London, 

1907. 

Murdoch,  W.G.B.:  Memories  of  Swinburne,  Edinburgh,  1910. 

Thomas,  Edward:  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne.  London,  1912. 

Welby,  T.  Earle:  Swinburne  ^ A Critical  Study.  London,  1914. 
Woodberry,  G.E.:  Literary  Essays.  New  York,  1920,  Vol.III. 

Wratislaw,  Theodore:  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne.  London,  1910. 

Magazine  Articles 

Academy  IX,  p 54,  Jan. 15th,  1876.  Article  on  rhyme  and  metre  by 

Algernon  Charles  Swinburne. 

Academy  XXXVI,  p 331.  Article  on  the  Study  of  Ben  Jon son  by  John 

Dayidson. 

Academy  XLVI,  p 547.  Article  on  Studies  in  Prose  and  Poetry  by  St. 

John  E.C.  Hankin. 

Contemporary  Review  XCV,  p 537.  Article  on  Swinburne  by  V/.  Robertson 

Nicoll. 

Dlstl  VII,  p 156.  Article  on  the  Miscellanies  by  M.B.  Anderson. 
Fortnightly  Review  XCI,  p 1037.  Article  on  Swinburne  by  Edmund  Gosse 


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